The Relational Algebra and Calculus

Chapter Outline
 Example Database Application (COMPANY)
 Relational Algebra
– Unary Relational Operations
– Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
– Binary Relational Operations
– Additional Relational Operations
– Examples of Queries in Relational Algebra
 Database State for COMPANY
All examples discussed below refer to the COMPANY database shown here.
 Relational Algebra
 The basic set of operations for the relational model is known
as the relational algebra. These operations enable a user to
specify basic retrieval requests.

 The result of a retrieval is a new relation, which may have

been formed from one or more relations. The algebra
operations thus produce new relations, which can be further
manipulated using operations of the same algebra.

 A sequence of relational algebra operations forms a

relational algebra expression, whose result will also be a
relation that represents the result of a database query (or
retrieval request).
 Unary Relational Operations
 SELECT Operation

SELECT operation is used to select a subset of the tuples from a relation that
satisfy a selection condition. It is a filter that keeps only those tuples that
satisfy a qualifying condition – those satisfying the condition are selected
while others are discarded.
Example: To select the EMPLOYEE tuples whose department number is
four or those whose salary is greater than $30,000 the following notation is
used:
 DNO = 4 (EMPLOYEE)
SALARY > 30,000 (EMPLOYEE)
In general, the select operation is denoted by <selection condition>(R) where the
symbol  (sigma) is used to denote the select operator, and the selection
condition is a Boolean expression specified on the attributes of relation R
 Unary Relational Operations
SELECT Operation Properties
– The SELECT operation <selection condition>(R) produces a relation S
that has the same schema as R

– The SELECT operation is commutative; i.e.,

 <condition1>(< condition2> ( R)) = <condition2> (< condition1> ( R))

– A cascaded SELECT operation may be applied in any order; i.e.,

 <condition1>(< condition2> (<condition3> ( R))
 = <condition2> (< condition3> (< condition1> ( R)))

– A cascaded SELECT operation may be replaced by a single selection with

a conjunction of all the conditions; i.e.,
 <condition1>(< condition2> (<condition3> ( R))
 = <condition1> AND < condition2> AND < condition3> ( R)))
Unary Relational Operations (cont.)
 Unary Relational Operations (cont.)
 PROJECT Operation
This operation selects certain columns from the table and discards the other
columns. The PROJECT creates a vertical partitioning – one with the needed
columns (attributes) containing results of the operation and other containing
the discarded Columns.
Example: To list each employee’s first and last name and salary, the
following is used:
 LNAME, FNAME,SALARY (EMPLOYEE)

The general form of the project operation is <attribute list>(R) where 
(pi) is the symbol used to represent the project operation and <attribute list>
is the desired list of attributes from the attributes of relation R.
The project operation removes any duplicate tuples, so the result of the
project operation is a set of tuples and hence a valid relation.
 Unary Relational Operations (cont.)
PROJECT Operation Properties
–
The number of tuples in the result of projection  <list> Ris
always less or equal to the number of tuples in R.

– If the list of attributes includes a key of R, then the number of

tuples is equal to the number of tuples in R.

–
 <list2> R)<list1> Ras long
<list1>
as<list2>contains theattributes in<list2>
Unary Relational Operations (cont.)
 Unary Relational Operations (cont.)
 Rename Operation
We may want to apply several relational algebra operations one after the other.
Either we can write the operations as a single relational algebra expression
by nesting the operations, or we can apply one operation at a time and create
intermediate result relations. In the latter case, we must give names to the
relations that hold the intermediate results.
Example: To retrieve the first name, last name, and salary of all employees
who work in department number 5, we must apply a select and a project
operation. We can write a single relational algebra expression as follows:

 FNAME, LNAME, SALARY ( DNO=5(EMPLOYEE))

OR We can explicitly show the sequence of operations, giving a name to each
intermediate relation:
DEP5_EMPS   DNO=5(EMPLOYEE)
RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, SALARY (DEP5_EMPS)
 Unary Relational Operations (cont.)
 Rename Operation (cont.)
The rename operator is 

The general Rename operation can be expressed by any of the

following forms:

 S (B1, B2, …, Bn ) ( R) is a renamed relationS based on R with column names B1, B1, …..Bn

 S ( R) is a renamed relationS based on R (which does not specify column names).

 (B1, B2, …, Bn ) ( R) is a renamed relationwith column names B1, B1, …..Bn which does

not specify a new relation name.

Unary Relational Operations (cont.)
 Relational Algebra Operations From
Set Theory
 UNION Operation
The result of this operation, denoted by R  S, is a relation that includes all
tuples that are either in R or in S or in both R and S. Duplicate tuples are
eliminated.
Example: To retrieve the social security numbers of all employees who either
work in department 5 or directly supervise an employee who works in
department 5, we can use the union operation as follows:
DEP5_EMPS  DNO=5 (EMPLOYEE)
RESULT1   SSN(DEP5_EMPS)
RESULT2(SSN)   SUPERSSN(DEP5_EMPS)
RESULT  RESULT1  RESULT2
The union operation produces the tuples that are in either RESULT1 or
RESULT2 or both. The two operands must be “type compatible”.
 Relational Algebra Operations From
Set Theory
 Union Compatibility
– The operand relations R1(A1, A2, ..., An) and R2(B1, B2, ..., Bn)
must have the same number of attributes, and the domains of
corresponding attributes must be compatible; that is,
dom(Ai)=dom(Bi) for i=1, 2, ..., n.

– The resulting relation for R1R2,R1  R2, or R1-R2 has the

same attribute names as the first operand relation R1 (by
convention).
 Relational Algebra Operations From
Set Theory
 UNION Example

STUDENTINSTRUCTOR
Relational Algebra Operations From Set
Theory (cont.)
Relational Algebra Operations From Set
Theory (cont.)
 INTERSECTION OPERATION

The result of this operation, denoted by R S, is a relation that includes all
tuples that are in both R and S. The two operands must be "type compatible"

Example: The result of the intersection operation (figure below) includes

only those who are both students and instructors.

STUDENT INSTRUCTOR
 Relational Algebra Operations From Set
Theory (cont.)
 Set Difference (or MINUS) Operation
The result of this operation, denoted by R - S, is a relation that includes all
tuples that are in R but not in S. The two operands must be "type compatible”.

Example: The figure shows the names of students who are not instructors,
and the names of instructors who are not students.

STUDENT-INSTRUCTOR

INSTRUCTOR-STUDENT
 Relational Algebra Operations From Set
Theory (cont.)
 Notice that both union and intersection are commutative
operations; that is
R  S = S  R, and R  S = S  R

 Both union and intersection can be treated as n-ary operations

applicable to any number of relations as both are associative
operations; that is
R  (S  T) = (R  S)  T, and (R  S)  T = R  (S  T)

 The minus operation is not commutative; that is, in general

R-S≠S–R
 Relational Algebra Operations From Set
Theory (cont.)
 CARTESIAN (or cross product) Operation
– This operation is used to combine tuples from two relations in a
combinatorial fashion. In general, the result of R(A1, A2, . . ., An) x S(B1, B2,
. . ., Bm) is a relation Q with degree n + m attributes Q(A1, A2, . . ., An, B1,
B2, . . ., Bm), in that order. The resulting relation Q has one tuple for each
combination of tuples—one from R and one from S.
– Hence, if R has nR tuples (denoted as |R| = nR ), and S has nS tuples, then
| R x S | will have nR * nS tuples.
– The two operands do NOT have to be "type compatible”

Example:
FEMALE_EMPS   SEX=’F’(EMPLOYEE)
EMPNAMES   FNAME, LNAME, SSN (FEMALE_EMPS)

EMP_DEPENDENTS  EMPNAMES x DEPENDENT

Relational Algebra Operations From Set
Theory (cont.)
 Binary Relational Operations
 JOIN Operation
– The sequence of cartesian product followed by select is used
quite commonly to identify and select related tuples from two
relations, a special operation, called JOIN. It is denoted by a
– This operation is very important for any relational database
with more than a single relation, because it allows us to process
relationships among relations.
– The general form of a join operation on two relations R(A1,
A2, . . ., An) and S(B1, B2, . . ., Bm) is:
R <join condition> S
where R and S can be any relations that result from general
relational algebra expressions.
 Binary Relational Operations (cont.)
Example: Suppose that we want to retrieve the name of
the manager of each department. To get the manager’s
name, we need to combine each DEPARTMENT tuple
with the EMPLOYEE tuple whose SSN value matches
the MGRSSN value in the department tuple. We do this
by using the join operation.
DEPT_MGR  DEPARTMENT MGRSSN=SSN
EMPLOYEE
 Binary Relational Operations (cont.)
 EQUIJOIN Operation
The most common use of join involves join conditions with equality comparisons only.
Such a join, where the only comparison operator used is =, is called an EQUIJOIN. In
the result of an EQUIJOIN we always have one or more pairs of attributes (whose
names need not be identical) that have identical values in every tuple.
The JOIN seen in the previous example was EQUIJOIN.

 NATURAL JOIN Operation

Because one of each pair of attributes with identical values is superfluous, a new
operation called natural join—denoted by *—was created to get rid of the second
(superfluous) attribute in an EQUIJOIN condition.
The standard definition of natural join requires that the two join attributes, or each pair
of corresponding join attributes, have the same name in both relations. If this is not the
case, a renaming operation is applied first.
 Binary Relational Operations (cont.)
Example: To apply a natural join on the DNUMBER attributes of
DEPARTMENT and DEPT_LOCATIONS, it is sufficient to write:
DEPT_LOCS  DEPARTMENT * DEPT_LOCATIONS
 Complete Set of Relational Operations

 The set of operations including select , project

 , union , set difference - , and cartesian
product X is called a complete set because any
other relational algebra expression can be
expressed by a combination of these five
operations.
 For example:
R  S = (R  S ) – ((R  S)  (S  R))
R <join condition> S= <join condition> (R X S)
 Binary Relational Operations (cont.)

 DIVISION Operation
– The division operation is applied to two relations
R(Z)  S(X), where X subset Z. Let Y = Z - X (and hence Z
= X  Y); that is, let Y be the set of attributes of R that are
not attributes of S.
– The result of DIVISION is a relation T(Y) that includes a
tuple t if tuples tR appear in R with tR [Y] = t, and with
tR [X] = ts for every tuple ts in S.

– For a tuple t to appear in the result T of the DIVISION, the

values in t must appear in R in combination with every tuple
in S.
Binary Relational Operations (cont.)
Recap of Relational Algebra Operations
 Additional Relational Operations

 Aggregate Functions and Grouping

– A type of request that cannot be expressed in the basic relational algebra
is to specify mathematical aggregate functions on collections of values
from the database.

– Examples of such functions include retrieving the average or total salary

of all employees or the total number of employee tuples. These functions
are used in simple statistical queries that summarize information from
the database tuples.

– Common functions applied to collections of numeric values include

SUM, AVERAGE, MAXIMUM, and MINIMUM. The COUNT function
is used for counting tuples or values.
Additional Relational Operations (cont.)
Additional Relational Operations (cont.)

Use of the Functional operator ζ

ζMAX Salary (Employee) retrieves the maximum salary value from
the Employee relation

ζMIN Salary (Employee) retrieves the minimum Salary value from

the Employee relation
ζSUM Salary (Employee) retrieves the sum of the Salary from the
Employee relation

DNO ζ COUNT SSN, AVERAGE Salary (Employee) groups employees by

DNO (department number) and computes the count of
employees and average salary per department.[ Note: count
just counts the number of rows, without removing duplicates]
Additional Relational Operations (cont.)
 Recursive Closure Operations
– Another type of operation that, in general, cannot be specified in the
basic original relational algebra is recursive closure. This operation is
applied to a recursive relationship.
– An example of a recursive operation is to retrieve all SUPERVISEES of
an EMPLOYEE e at all levels—that is, all EMPLOYEE e’ directly
supervised by e; all employees e’’ directly supervised by each employee
e’; all employees e’’’ directly supervised by each employee e’’; and so
on .
– Although it is possible to retrieve employees at each level and then take
their union, we cannot, in general, specify a query such as “retrieve the
supervisees of ‘James Borg’ at all levels” without utilizing a looping
mechanism.
– The SQL3 standard includes syntax for recursive closure.
Additional Relational Operations (cont.)
Additional Relational Operations (cont.)
 The OUTER JOIN Operation
– In NATURAL JOIN tuples without a matching (or related) tuple are eliminated
from the join result. Tuples with null in the join attributes are also eliminated.
This amounts to loss of information.
– A set of operations, called outer joins, can be used when we want to keep all the
tuples in R, or all those in S, or all those in both relations in the result of the
join, regardless of whether or not they have matching tuples in the other
relation.
– The left outer join operation keeps every tuple in the first or left relation R in
R S; if no matching tuple is found in S, then the attributes of S in the join
result are filled or “padded” with null values.
– A similar operation, right outer join, keeps every tuple in the second or right
relation S in the result of R S.
– A third operation, full outer join, denoted by keeps all tuples in both the
left and the right relations when no matching tuples are found, padding them
with null values as needed.
Additional Relational Operations (cont.)
 Additional Relational Operations (cont.)
 OUTER UNION Operations
– The outer union operation was developed to take the union of tuples from two
relations if the relations are not union compatible.
– This operation will take the union of tuples in two relations R(X, Y) and S(X, Z)
that are partially compatible, meaning that only some of their attributes, say X, are
union compatible.
– The attributes that are union compatible are represented only once in the result, and
those attributes that are not union compatible from either relation are also kept in
the result relation T(X, Y, Z).
– Example: An outer union can be applied to two relations whose schemas are
STUDENT(Name, SSN, Department, Advisor) and INSTRUCTOR(Name, SSN,
Department, Rank). Tuples from the two relations are matched based on having the
same combination of values of the shared attributes—Name, SSN, Department. If a
student is also an instructor, both Advisor and Rank will have a value; otherwise,
one of these two attributes will be null.
The result relation STUDENT_OR_INSTRUCTOR will have the following
attributes:
STUDENT_OR_INSTRUCTOR (Name, SSN, Department, Advisor, Rank)
Examples of Queries in Relational Algebra
 Q1: Retrieve the name and address of all employees who
work for the ‘Research’ department.
RESEARCH_DEPT   DNAME=’Research’ (DEPARTMENT)
RESEARCH_EMPS  (RESEARCH_DEPT DNUMBER= DNOEMPLOYEE EMPLOYEE)
RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, ADDRESS (RESEARCH_EMPS)

 Q6: Retrieve the names of employees who have no

dependents.
ALL_EMPS   SSN(EMPLOYEE)
EMPS_WITH_DEPS(SSN)   ESSN(DEPENDENT)
EMPS_WITHOUT_DEPS  (ALL_EMPS - EMPS_WITH_DEPS)
RESULT   LNAME, FNAME (EMPS_WITHOUT_DEPS * EMPLOYEE)