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 Chapter 6
The Relational Algebra and Calculus
Chapter Outline

 Relational Algebra
 Unary Relational Operations
 Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
 Binary Relational Operations
 Additional Relational Operations
 Examples of Queries in Relational Algebra
 Relational Calculus
 Tuple Relational Calculus
 Domain Relational Calculus
 Example Database Application (COMPANY)
 Overview of the QBE language (appendix D)
Relational Algebra Overview

 Relational algebra is the basic set of operations for the

relational model
 These operations enable a user to
specify basic retrieval requests (or
queries)
 The result of an operation is a new relation, which may
have been formed from one or more input relations
 This property makes the algebra “closed” (all objects in
relational algebra are relations)
Relational Algebra Overview
(continued)

 The algebra operations thus produce new relations

 These can be further manipulated using operations of the
same algebra
 A sequence of relational algebra operations forms a
relational algebra expression
 The result of a relational algebra
expression is also a relation that
represents the result of a database
query (or retrieval request)
Brief History of Origins of Algebra

 Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi (800-847 CE)

wrote a book titled al-jabr about arithmetic of
variables
 Book was translated into Latin.
 Its title (al-jabr) gave Algebra its name.
 Al-Khwarizmi called variables “shay”
 “Shay” is Arabic for “thing”.
 Spanish transliterated “shay” as “xay” (“x” was
“sh” in Spain).
 In time this word was abbreviated as x.
 Where does the word Algorithm come from?
 Algorithm originates from “al-Khwarizmi"
 Reference: PBS (
http://www.pbs.org/empires/islam/innoalgebra.ht
ml
)
Relational Algebra Overview

 Relational Algebra consists of several groups of operations

 Unary Relational Operations
 SELECT (symbol:  (sigma))
 PROJECT (symbol: (pi))
 RENAME (symbol:  (rho))
 Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
 UNION (  ), INTERSECTION ( ), DIFFERENCE (or MINUS, – )
 CARTESIAN PRODUCT ( x )
 Binary Relational Operations
 JOIN (several variations of JOIN exist)
 DIVISION
 Additional Relational Operations
 OUTER JOINS, OUTER UNION
 AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS (These compute summary of
information: for example, SUM, COUNT, AVG, MIN, MAX)
Database State for COMPANY

 All examples discussed below refer to the

COMPANY database shown here.

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Unary Relational Operations:
SELECT
 The SELECT operation (denoted by  (sigma)) is used to select
a subset of the tuples from a relation based on a selection
condition.
 The selection condition acts as a filter
 Keeps only those tuples that satisfy the qualifying
condition
 Tuples satisfying the condition are selected whereas
the other tuples are discarded (filtered out)
 Examples:
 Select the EMPLOYEE tuples whose department number is
4:
 (EMPLOYEE)
DNO = 4
 Select the employee tuples whose salary is greater than
$30,000:
 SALARY > 30,000 (EMPLOYEE)
Unary Relational Operations:
SELECT

 In
general, the select operation is
denoted by  <selection condition>(R)
where

the symbol  (sigma) is used to denote the select operator
 the selection condition is a Boolean (conditional) expression
specified on the attributes of relation R
 tuples that make the condition true are selected
 appear in the result of the operation
 tuples that make the condition false are filtered out
 discarded from the result of the operation
Unary Relational Operations:
SELECT (contd.)
 SELECT Operation Properties
 The SELECT operation  <selection condition>(R) produces a
relation S that has the same schema (same attributes) as R
 SELECT  is commutative:
 
<condition1>( < condition2> (R)) =  <condition2> ( < condition1> (R))
 Because of commutativity property, a cascade (sequence)
of SELECT operations may be applied in any order:
 
<cond1>(<cond2> (<cond3> (R)) = <cond2> (<cond3> (<cond1> ( R)))
 A cascade of SELECT operations may be replaced by a
single selection with a conjunction of all the conditions:
 
<cond1>(< cond2> (<cond3>(R)) =  <cond1> AND < cond2> AND < cond3>(R)))
 The number of tuples in the result of a SELECT is less
than (or equal to) the number of tuples in the input
relation R
The following query results refer
to this database state
Unary Relational Operations:
PROJECT
 PROJECT Operation is denoted by (pi)
 This operation keeps certain columns (attributes) from a
relation and discards the other columns.
 PROJECT creates a vertical partitioning
 The list of specified columns (attributes) is kept in each tuple
 The other attributes in each tuple are discarded
 Example: To list each employee’s first and last name
and salary, the following is used:
LNAME, FNAME,SALARY(EMPLOYEE)
Unary Relational Operations:
PROJECT (cont.)

 The general form of the project operation is:

<attribute list>(R)
  (pi) is the symbol used to represent the project
operation
 <attribute list> is the desired list of attributes from
relation R.
 The project operation removes any duplicate tuples
 This is because the result of the project operation must be
a set of tuples
 Mathematical sets do not allow duplicate elements.

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Unary Relational Operations:
PROJECT (contd.)

 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 in the result of PROJECT is equal to the number of
tuples in R
 PROJECT is not commutative
  <list1> ( <list2> (R) ) =  <list1> (R) as long as <list2> contains the
attributes in <list1>
Examples of applying SELECT and
PROJECT operations

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Relational Algebra
Expressions
 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.
Single expression versus sequence of
relational operations (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( (EMPLOYEE))
DNO=5

 OR We can explicitly show the sequence of

operations, giving a name to each intermediate
relation:
 DEP5_EMPS   (EMPLOYEE)
DNO=5

 RESULT   (DEP5_EMPS)
FNAME, LNAME, SALARY
Unary Relational Operations:
RENAME

 The RENAME operator is denoted by  (rho)

 Useful when a query requires
multiple operations
 Necessary in some cases (see
JOIN operation later)
Unary Relational Operations:
RENAME (contd.)

 The general RENAME operation  can be expressed by

any of the following forms:
 S(R) changes:
 the relation name only to S
Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory: UNION

 UNION Operation
 Binary operation, denoted by 
 The result of 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
 The two operand relations R and S must
be “type compatible” (or UNION
compatible)
R and S must have same number of
attributes
 Each pair of corresponding attributes
must be type compatible (have same or
compatible domains)
Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory: UNION

 Example:
 To retrieve the social security numbers of all
employees who either work in department 5
(RESULT1 below) or directly supervise an
employee who works in department 5 (RESULT2
below)
 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
Example of the result of a UNION
operation

 UNION Example
Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory

 Type Compatibility of operands is required for the

binary set operation UNION , (also for
INTERSECTION , and SET DIFFERENCE –, see next
slides)
 R1(A1, A2, ..., An) and R2(B1, B2, ..., Bn) are type
compatible if:
 they have the same number of attributes, and
 the domains of corresponding attributes are type
compatible (i.e. dom(Ai)=dom(Bi) for i=1, 2, ..., n).
 The resulting relation for R1R2 (also for R1R2, or
R1–R2, see next slides) has the same attribute names
as the first operand relation R1 (by convention)
 Relational Algebra Operations
from Set Theory: INTERSECTION
 INTERSECTION is denoted by 
 The result of the operation R  S, is a
relation that includes all tuples that are
in both R and S
The attribute names in the result will be
the same as the attribute names in R
 Thetwo operand relations R and S must
be “type compatible”
 Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory: SET DIFFERENCE (cont.)
 SET DIFFERENCE (also called MINUS or EXCEPT) is denoted by –
 The result of R – S, is a relation that includes all tuples that are in R but
not in S

The attribute names in the result will be

the same as the attribute names in R
 The two operand relations R and S must
be “type compatible”
Example to illustrate the result of
UNION, INTERSECT, and DIFFERENCE

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Some properties of UNION,
INTERSECT, and DIFFERENCE
 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
 (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: CARTESIAN PRODUCT

 CARTESIAN (or CROSS) PRODUCT

Operation
 This operation is used to combine tuples
from two relations in a combinatorial
fashion.
 Denoted by R(A1, A2, . . ., An) x S(B1,
B2, . . ., Bm)
Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory: CARTESIAN PRODUCT
(cont.)
 Generally, CROSS PRODUCT is not a meaningful operation
 Can become meaningful when followed by other operations
 Example (not meaningful):
 FEMALE_EMPS   (EMPLOYEE)
SEX=’F’

 EMPNAMES   (FEMALE_EMPS)
FNAME, LNAME, SSN

 EMP_DEPENDENTS  EMPNAMES x DEPENDENT

 EMP_DEPENDENTS will contain every
combination of EMPNAMES and DEPENDENT
 whether or not they are actually related
Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory: CARTESIAN PRODUCT
(cont.)
 To keep only combinations where the DEPENDENT is related
to the EMPLOYEE, we add a SELECT operation as follows
 Example (meaningful):
 FEMALE_EMPS   SEX=’F’(EMPLOYEE)
 EMPNAMES   FNAME, LNAME, SSN (FEMALE_EMPS)
 EMP_DEPENDENTS  EMPNAMES x DEPENDENT
 ACTUAL_DEPS   SSN=ESSN(EMP_DEPENDENTS)
 RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, DEPENDENT_NAME
(ACTUAL_DEPS)
 RESULT will now contain the name of female
employees and their dependents
Example of applying CARTESIAN
PRODUCT
Binary Relational Operations:
JOIN
 JOIN Operation (denoted by )
 The sequence of CARTESIAN PRODECT followed
by SELECT is used quite commonly to identify
and select related tuples from two relations
 A special operation, called JOIN combines this
sequence into a single operation
 This operation is very important for any
relational database with more than a single
relation, because it allows us combine related
tuples from various 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:
JOIN (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 EMPLOYEE

MGRSSN=SSN
 MGRSSN=SSN is the join condition
 Combines each department record with the employee who
manages the department
 The join condition can also be specified as
DEPARTMENT.MGRSSN= EMPLOYEE.SSN
Example of applying the JOIN
operation
Some properties of JOIN

 Consider the following JOIN operation:

 R(A1, A2, . . ., An) S(B1, B2, . . ., Bm)
R.Ai=S.Bj
 Result is a relation Q with degree n + m attributes:
 Q(A1, A2, . . ., An, B1, B2, . . ., Bm), in that order.
 The resulting relation state has one tuple for each
combination of tuples—r from R and s from S, but only
if they satisfy the join condition r[Ai]=s[Bj]
 Hence, if R has nR tuples, and S has nS tuples, then the
join result will generally have less than nR * nS tuples.
 Only related tuples (based on the join condition) will
appear in the result
Some properties of JOIN

 The general case of JOIN operation is called a Theta-

join: R S
theta
 The join condition is called theta
 Theta can be any general boolean expression on the
attributes of R and S; for example:
 R.Ai<S.Bj AND (R.Ak=S.Bl OR R.Ap<S.Bq)
 Most join conditions involve one or more equality
conditions “AND”ed together; for example:
 R.Ai=S.Bj AND R.Ak=S.Bl AND R.Ap=S.Bq

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Binary Relational Operations:
EQUIJOIN
 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 an EQUIJOIN.

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Binary Relational Operations:
NATURAL JOIN Operation
 NATURAL JOIN Operation
 Another variation of JOIN called NATURAL JOIN
— denoted by * — was created to get rid of the
second (superfluous) attribute in an EQUIJOIN
condition.
 because one of each pair of attributes with
identical values is superfluous
 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.
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 Binary Relational Operations

NATURAL JOIN (contd.)
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
 Only attribute with the same name is DNUMBER
 An implicit join condition is created based on this attribute:
DEPARTMENT.DNUMBER=DEPT_LOCATIONS.DNUMBER

 Another example: Q  R(A,B,C,D) * S(C,D,E)

 The implicit join condition includes each pair of attributes with
the same name, “AND”ed together:
 R.C=S.C AND R.D.S.D
 Result keeps only one attribute of each such pair:
 Q(A,B,C,D,E)
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Example of NATURAL JOIN
operation

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Complete Set of Relational
Operations

 The set of operations including SELECT , PROJECT  ,

UNION , DIFFERENCE  , RENAME , 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 S =  <join condition> (R X S)
<join condition>

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Binary Relational Operations:
DIVISION
 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.
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Example of DIVISION

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Recap of Relational Algebra
Operations

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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.
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Aggregate Function Operation

 Use of the Aggregate Functional operation ℱ

 ℱMAX Salary (EMPLOYEE) retrieves the maximum
salary value from the EMPLOYEE relation
 ℱMIN Salary (EMPLOYEE) retrieves the minimum
Salary value from the EMPLOYEE relation
 ℱSUM Salary (EMPLOYEE) retrieves the sum of the
Salary from the EMPLOYEE relation
 ℱCOUNT SSN, AVERAGE Salary (EMPLOYEE) computes the
count (number) of employees and their
average salary
 Note: count just counts the number of rows,
without removing duplicates
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Using Grouping with
Aggregation
 The previous examples all summarized one or
more attributes for a set of tuples
 Maximum Salary or Count (number of) Ssn
 Grouping can be combined with Aggregate
Functions
 Example: For each department, retrieve the DNO,
COUNT SSN, and AVERAGE SALARY
 A variation of aggregate operation ℱ allows this:
 Grouping attribute placed to left of symbol
 Aggregate functions to right of symbol

DNO ℱCOUNT SSN, AVERAGE Salary (EMPLOYEE)
 Above operation groups employees by DNO
(department number) and computes the count of
employees and average salary per department
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Examples of applying aggregate
functions and grouping

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Illustrating aggregate functions
and grouping

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 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.
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Additional Relational Operations
(cont.)

 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.

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 Additional Relational Operations
(cont.)


Slide
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Additional Relational Operations
(cont.)
 The OUTER JOIN Operation
 In NATURAL JOIN and EQUIJOIN, 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.
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Additional Relational Operations
(cont.)
 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.

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Additional Relational Operations
(cont.)

Slide
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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
type 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 type
compatible.
 The attributes that are type compatible are represented
only once in the result, and those attributes that are not
type compatible from either relation are also kept in the
result relation T(X, Y, Z).

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Additional Relational Operations
(cont.)
 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)
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 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)

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Relational Calculus

 A relational calculus expression creates a new relation,

which is specified in terms of variables that range over
rows of the stored database relations (in tuple calculus)
or over columns of the stored relations (in domain
calculus).
 In a calculus expression, there is no order of operations
to specify how to retrieve the query result—a calculus
expression specifies only what information the result
should contain.
 This is the main distinguishing feature between relational
algebra and relational calculus.

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Relational Calculus

 Relational calculus is considered to be a nonprocedural

language.
 This differs from relational algebra, where we must
write a sequence of operations to specify a retrieval
request; hence relational algebra can be considered as
a procedural way of stating a query.

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Tuple Relational Calculus

 The tuple relational calculus is based on

specifying a number of tuple variables.
 Each tuple variable usually ranges over a
particular database relation, meaning that the
variable may take as its value any individual tuple
from that relation.
 A simple tuple relational calculus query is of the
form
{t | COND(t)}
 where t is a tuple variable and COND (t) is a
conditional expression involving t.
 The result of such a query is the set of all tuples
t that satisfy COND (t).
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Tuple Relational Calculus

 Example: To find the first and last names of all

employees whose salary is above $50,000, we can
write the following tuple calculus expression:
{t.FNAME, t.LNAME | EMPLOYEE(t) AND
t.SALARY>50000}
 The condition EMPLOYEE(t) specifies that the
range relation of tuple variable t is EMPLOYEE.
 The first and last name (PROJECTION FNAME, LNAME)
of each EMPLOYEE tuple t that satisfies the
condition t.SALARY>50000 (SELECTION SALARY >50000)
will be retrieved.
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The Existential and Universal
Quantifiers
 Two special symbols called quantifiers can
appear in formulas; these are the universal
quantifier  and the existential quantifier

 Informally, a tuple variable t is bound if it is
quantified, meaning that it appears in an t
or t clause; otherwise, it is free.
 If F is a formula, then so are t)(F) and t)
(F), where t is a tuple variable.
 The formula t)(F) is true if the formula F
evaluates to true for some (at least one) tuple
assigned to free occurrences of t in F;
otherwise t)(F) is false.
 The formula  t)(F) is true if the formula F
evaluates to true for every tuple (in the
universe) assigned to free occurrences of t in
F; otherwise t)(F) is false.
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The Existential and Universal
Quantifiers

  is called the universal or “for all” quantifier because

every tuple in “the universe of” tuples must make F
true to make the quantified formula true.
  is called the existential or “there exists” quantifier
because any tuple that exists in “the universe of” tuples
may make F true to make the quantified formula true.

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Example Query Using Existential
Quantifier
 Retrieve the name and address of all employees who work for
the ‘Research’ department. The query can be expressed as :
{t.FNAME, t.LNAME, t.ADDRESS | EMPLOYEE(t) and  d)
(DEPARTMENT(d) and d.DNAME=‘Research’ and
d.DNUMBER=t.DNO) }
 The only free tuple variables in a relational calculus expression
should be those that appear to the left of the bar ( | ).
 In above query, t is the only free variable; it is then bound
successively to each tuple.
 If a tuple satisfies the conditions specified in the query, the
attributes FNAME, LNAME, and ADDRESS are retrieved for each
such tuple.
 The conditions EMPLOYEE (t) and DEPARTMENT(d) specify
the range relations for t and d.
 The condition d.DNAME = ‘Research’ is a selection
condition and corresponds to a SELECT operation in the
relational algebra, whereas the condition d.DNUMBER =
t.DNO is a JOIN condition.

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Example Query Using Universal
Quantifier
 Find the names of employees who work on all the projects
controlled by department number 5. The query can be:
{e.LNAME, e.FNAME | EMPLOYEE(e) and  x)(not(PROJECT(x)) or
not(x.DNUM=5)
OR  w)(WORKS_ON(w) and w.ESSN=e.SSN and
x.PNUMBER=w.PNO))))}
 Exclude from the universal quantification all tuples that we are not
interested in by making the condition true for all such tuples.
 The first tuples to exclude (by making them evaluate automatically
to true) are those that are not in the relation R of interest.
 In query above, using the expression not(PROJECT(x)) inside the
universally quantified formula evaluates to true all tuples x that
are not in the PROJECT relation.
 Then we exclude the tuples we are not interested in from R itself.
The expression not(x.DNUM=5) evaluates to true all tuples x that
are in the project relation but are not controlled by department 5.
 Finally, we specify a condition that must hold on all the remaining
tuples in R.
 w)(WORKS_ON(w) and w.ESSN=e.SSN and x.PNUMBER=w.PNO)

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Languages Based on Tuple
Relational Calculus
 The language SQL is based on tuple calculus. It
uses the basic block structure to express the
queries in tuple calculus:
 SELECT <list of attributes>
 FROM <list of relations>
 WHERE <conditions>
 SELECT clause mentions the attributes being
projected, the FROM clause mentions the relations
needed in the query, and the WHERE clause
mentions the selection as well as the join
conditions.
 SQL syntax is expanded further to accommodate
other operations. (See Chapter 8).
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Languages Based on Tuple
Relational Calculus

 Another language which is based on tuple calculus is

QUEL which actually uses the range variables as in tuple
calculus. Its syntax includes:
 RANGE OF <variable name> IS <relation name>
 Then it uses
 RETRIEVE <list of attributes from range variables>
 WHERE <conditions>
 This language was proposed in the relational DBMS
INGRES.

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The Domain Relational Calculus

 Another variation of relational calculus called the domain

relational calculus, or simply, domain calculus is equivalent
to tuple calculus and to relational algebra.
 The language called QBE (Query-By-Example) that is
related to domain calculus was developed almost
concurrently to SQL at IBM Research, Yorktown Heights,
New York.
 Domain calculus was thought of as a way to explain
what QBE does.
 Domain calculus differs from tuple calculus in the type of
variables used in formulas:
 Rather than having variables range over tuples, the
variables range over single values from domains of
attributes.
 To form a relation of degree n for a query result, we must
have n of these domain variables— one for each attribute.

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The Domain Relational Calculus

 An expression of the domain calculus is of the form

{ x1, x2, . . ., xn |
COND(x1, x2, . . ., xn, xn+1, xn+2, . . ., xn+m)}
 where x1, x2, . . ., xn, xn+1, xn+2, . . ., xn+m are domain
variables that range over domains (of attributes)
 and COND is a condition or formula of the domain
relational calculus.

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Example Query Using Domain
Calculus
 Retrieve the birthdate and address of the employee whose
name is ‘John B. Smith’.
 Query :

{uv | (q) (r) (s) (t) (w) (x) (y) (z)

(EMPLOYEE(qrstuvwxyz) and q=’John’ and r=’B’ and
s=’Smith’)}
 Ten variables for the employee relation are needed, one to
range over the domain of each attribute in order.
 Of the ten variables q, r, s, . . ., z, only u and v are free.
 Specify the requested attributes, BDATE and ADDRESS, by the
free domain variables u for BDATE and v for ADDRESS.
 Specify the condition for selecting a tuple following the bar
( | )—
 namely, that the sequence of values assigned to the
variables qrstuvwxyz be a tuple of the employee relation
and that the values for q (FNAME), r (MINIT), and s
(LNAME) be ‘John’, ‘B’, and ‘Smith’, respectively.

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QBE: A Query Language Based on
Domain Calculus (Appendix C)
 This language is based on the idea of giving an
example of a query using example elements.
 An example element stands for a domain
variable and is specified as an example value
preceded by the underscore character.
 P. (called P dot) operator (for “print”) is
placed in those columns which are requested
for the result of the query.
 A user may initially start giving actual values
as examples, but later can get used to
providing a minimum number of variables as
example elements.
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QBE: A Query Language Based on
Domain Calculus (Appendix C)
 The language is very user-friendly, because it uses
minimal syntax.
 QBE was fully developed further with facilities for
grouping, aggregation, updating etc. and is shown to be
equivalent to SQL.
 The language is available under QMF (Query
Management Facility) of DB2 of IBM and has been used
in various ways by other products like ACCESS of
Microsoft, PARADOX.
 For details, see Appendix C in the text.

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QBE Examples

 QBE initially presents a relational schema as a “blank

schema” in which the user fills in the query as an
example:

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QBE Examples

 The following domain calculus query can

be successively minimized by the user as
shown:
 Query :
{uv | (q) (r) (s) (t) (w) (x) (y)
(z)
(EMPLOYEE(qrstuvwxyz) and q=‘John’
and r=‘B’ and s=‘Smith’)}

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QBE Examples

 Specifying complex conditions in QBE:

 A technique called the “condition box” is used in QBE
to state more involved Boolean expressions as
conditions.
 The C.4(a) gives employees who work on either project
1 or 2, whereas the query in C.4(b) gives those who
work on both the projects.

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QBE Examples

 Illustrating join in QBE. The join is simple accomplished

by using the same example element in the columns
being joined. Note that the Result is set us as an
independent table.

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Chapter Summary

 Relational Algebra
 Unary Relational Operations
 Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
 Binary Relational Operations
 Additional Relational Operations
 Examples of Queries in Relational Algebra
 Relational Calculus
 Tuple Relational Calculus
 Domain Relational Calculus
 Overview of the QBE language (appendix C)

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