Chapter 2: Relational Model

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Outlines
 Structure of Relational Databases
 Fundamental Relational-Algebra-
Operations
 Extended Relational-Algebra-Operations
 Null Values
 Modification of the Database

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 Example of a Relation

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 Basic Structure
 Formally, given sets D1, D2, …. Dn a relation r is a subset of
D1 x D2 x … x Dn
Thus, a relation is a set of n-tuples (a1, a2, …, an) where each ai  Di
 Example: If
 customer_name = {Jones, Smith, Curry, Lindsay, …}
/* Set of all customer names */
 customer_street = {Main, North, Park, …} /* set of all street names*/
 customer_city = {Harrison, Rye, Pittsfield, …} /* set of all city names
*/
Then r = { (Jones, Main, Harrison),
(Smith, North, Rye),
(Curry, North, Rye),
(Lindsay, Park, Pittsfield) }
is a relation over
customer_name x customer_street x customer_city

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Attribute Types
 Each attribute of a relation has a name
 The set of allowed values for each attribute is called the
domain of the attribute
 Attribute values are (normally) required to be atomic; that
is, indivisible
 E.g. the value of an attribute can be an account
number,
but cannot be a set of account numbers
 Domain is said to be atomic if all its members are atomic
 The special value null is a member of every domain
 The null value causes complications in the definition of
many operations
 We shall ignore the effect of null values in our main
presentation and consider their effect later

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 Relation Schema
 A1, A2, …, An are attributes

 R = (A1, A2, …, An ) is a relation schema

Example:
Customer_schema = (customer_name, customer_street,
customer_city)

 r(R) denotes a relation r on the relation schema R

Example:
customer (Customer_schema)

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relation Instance
 The current values (relation instance) of a relation are
specified by a table
 An element t of r is a tuple, represented by a row in a
table

attributes
(or columns)
customer_name
customer_street
customer_city

Jones Main Harrison

Smith North Rye tuples
Curry North Rye (or rows)
Lindsay Park Pittsfield

customer

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relations are Unordered

 Order of tuples is irrelevant (tuples may be stored in an

arbitrary order)
 Example: account relation with unordered tuples

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 Database
 A database consists of multiple relations
 Information about an enterprise is broken up into parts, with each
relation storing one part of the information

account : stores information about accounts

depositor : stores information about which customer
owns which account
customer : stores information about customers
 Storing all information as a single relation such as
bank(account_number, balance, customer_name, ..)
results in
 repetition of information
 e.g.,if two customers own an account (What gets repeated?)
 the need for null values
 e.g., to represent a customer without an account
 Normalization theory (Chapter 7) deals with how to design
relational schemas

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 The customer Relation

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 The depositor Relation

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 Keys
 Let K  R
 K is a super key of R if values for K are sufficient to identify a
unique tuple of each possible relation r(R)
 by “possible r ” we mean a relation r that could exist in
the enterprise we are modeling.
 Example: {customer_name, customer_street} and
{customer_name}
are both super keys of Customer, if no two customers can
possibly have the same name
 In real life, an attribute such as customer_id would be
used instead of customer_name to uniquely identify
customers, but we omit it to keep our examples small,
and instead assume customer names are unique.

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Keys (Cont.)
 K is a candidate key if K is minimal
Example: {customer_name} is a candidate key for
Customer, since it is a superkey and no subset of it is a
superkey.
 Primary key: a candidate key chosen as the principal
means of identifying tuples within a relation
 Should choose an attribute whose value never, or
very rarely, changes.
 E.g. email address is unique, but may change

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Foreign Keys
 A relation schema may have an attribute that corresponds to the
primary key of another relation. The attribute is called a foreign
key.
 E.g. customer_name and account_number attributes of depositor
are foreign keys to customer and account respectively.
 Only values occurring in the primary key attribute of the
referenced relation may occur in the foreign key attribute of the
referencing relation.
 Schema diagram

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Query Languages
 Language in which user requests information from the
database.
 Categories of languages
 Procedural
 Non-procedural, or declarative
 “Pure” languages:
 Relational algebra
 Tuple relational calculus
 Domain relational calculus
 Pure languages form underlying basis of query languages
that people use.

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 Relational Algebra
 Procedural language
 Six basic operators
 select: 
 project: 
 union: 
 set difference: –
 Cartesian product: x
 rename: 
 The operators take one or two relations as inputs and
produce a new relation as a result.

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Select Operation – Example
 Relation
r A B C D

  1 7
  5 7
  12 3
  23 10

A=B ^ D > 5 (r)

A B C D

  1 7
  23 10

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 Select Operation
 Notation:  p(r)
 p is called the selection predicate
 Defined as:

p(r) = {t | t  r and p(t)}

Where p is a formula in propositional calculus consisting

of terms connected by :  (and),  (or),  (not)
Each term is one of:
<attribute> op <attribute> or <constant>
where op is one of: =, , >, . <. 

 Example of selection:

 branch_name=“Perryridge” (account)

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Project Operation – Example
 Relation r: A B C

 10 1
 20 1
 30 1
 40 2

A,C (r) A C A C

 1  1
 1 =  1
 1  2
 2

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Project Operation
 Notation:
 A1 , A2 ,, Ak (r )
where A1, A2 are attribute names and r is a relation name.

 The result is defined as the relation of k columns obtained by

erasing the columns that are not listed

 Duplicate rows removed from result, since relations are sets

 Example: To eliminate the branch_name attribute of account

account_number, balance (account)

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 Union Operation – Example
 Relations r, s: A B A B

 1  2
 2  3
 1 s
r

A B
 r  s:  1
 2
 1
 3

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 Union Operation

 Notation: r  s

 Defined as:

r  s = {t | t  r or t  s}
 For r  s to be valid.

1. r, s must have the same arity (same number of attributes)

2. The attribute domains must be compatible (example: 2nd

column
of r deals with the same type of values as does the 2nd
column of s)

 Example: to find all customers with either an account or a loan

customer_name (depositor)  customer_name (borrower)

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 Set Difference Operation –
Example
 Relations r, s:
A B A B

 1  2
 2  3
 1 s
r

 r – s:
A B

 1
 1

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 Set Difference Operation

 Notation r – s

 Defined as:

r – s = {t | t  r and t  s}

 Set differences must be taken between

compatible relations.

 r and s must have the same arity

 attribute domains of r and s must be
compatible

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 Cartesian-Product Operation –
Example
 Relations r, s:
A B C D E

 1  10 a
 10 a
 2  20 b
r  10 b
s
 r x s:
A B C D E
 1  10 a
 1  10 a
 1  20 b
 1  10 b
 2  10 a
 2  10 a
 2  20 b
 2  10 b

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 Cartesian-Product Operation

 Notation r x s

 Defined as:

r x s = {t q | t  r and q  s}

 Assume that attributes of r(R) and s(S) are disjoint. (That

is, R  S = ).

 If attributes of r(R) and s(S) are not disjoint, then

renaming must be used.

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 Composition of Operations
 Can build expressions using multiple operations
 Example: A=C(r x s)
 rxs
A B C D E
 1  10 a
 1  10 a
 1  20 b
 1  10 b
 2  10 a
 2  10 a
 2  20 b
 2  10 b
 A=C(r x s)
A B C D E
 1  10 a
 2  10 a
 2  20 b

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 Rename Operation
 Allows us to name, and therefore to refer to, the results of
relational-algebra expressions.
 Allows us to refer to a relation by more than one name.
 Example:
 x (E)

returns the expression E under the name X

 If a relational-algebra expression E has arity n, then

 x ( A ,A 1 2 ,..., An )
(E )

returns the result of expression E under the name X, and

with the
attributes renamed to A1 , A2 , …., An .

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Banking Example
branch (branch_name,
branch_city, assets)

customer (customer_name,
customer_street,
customer_city)

account (account_number,
branch_name, balance)

loan (loan_number, branch_name,

amount)

depositor (customer_name,
account_number)

borrower (customer_name,
loan_number)

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Queries
 Find all loans of over $1200

amount > 1200 (loan)

 Find the loan number for each loan of an amount greater

than $1200

loan_number (amount > 1200 (loan))

 Find the names of all customers who have a loan, an

account, or both, from the bank

customer_name (borrower)  customer_name (depositor)

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Queries
 Find the names of all customers who have a loan at the
Perryridge branch.

customer_name (branch_name=“Perryridge”
(borrower.loan_number = loan.loan_number(borrower x
loan)))
 Find the names of all customers who have a loan at the
Perryridge branch but do not have an account at any
branch of
the bank.
customer_name (branch_name = “Perryridge”

(borrower.loan_number = loan.loan_number(borrower x loan))) –

customer_name(depositor)
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 Formal Definition
 A basic expression in the relational algebra consists of either
one of the following:
 A relation in the database
 A constant relation
 Let E1 and E2 be relational-algebra expressions; the following
are all relational-algebra expressions:
 E1  E2

 E1 – E2

 E1 x E2

 p (E1), P is a predicate on attributes in E1

 s(E1), S is a list consisting of some of the attributes in E1

  x (E1), x is the new name for the result of E1

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 Extended Relational-Algebra-
Operations
 Generalized Projection
 Aggregate Functions

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 Generalized Projection
 Extends the projection operation by allowing arithmetic
functions to be used in the projection list.

 F1 ,F2 ,..., Fn (E )
 E is any relational-algebra expression
 Each of F1, F2, …, Fn are are arithmetic expressions
involving constants and attributes in the schema of E.
 Given relation credit_info(customer_name, limit,
credit_balance), find how much more each person can
spend:
customer_name, limit – credit_balance (credit_info)

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 Aggregate Functions and
Operations
 Aggregation function takes a collection of values and
returns a single value as a result.
avg: average value
min: minimum value
max: maximum value
sum: sum of values
count: number of values
 Aggregate operation in relational algebra

G1 ,G2 ,,Gn F ( A ),F ( A ,,F ( A ) (E )

1 1 2 2 n n

E is any relational-algebra expression

 G1, G2 …, Gn is a list of attributes on which to group
(can be empty)
 Each Fi is an aggregate function
 Each Ai is an attribute name

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 Aggregate Operation – Example
 Relation r:

A B C

  7
  7
  3
  10

 g sum(c) (r) sum(c )

27

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 Aggregate Operation – Example
 Relation account grouped by branch-name:

branch_name
account_number balance
Perryridge A-102 400
Perryridge A-201 900
Brighton A-217 750
Brighton A-215 750
Redwood A-222 700

branch_name g sum(balance) (account)

branch_namesum(balance)
Perryridge 1300
Brighton 1500
Redwood 700

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 Aggregate Functions (Cont.)
 Result of aggregation does not have a name
 Can use rename operation to give it a name
 For convenience, we permit renaming as part of
aggregate operation

branch_name g sum(balance) as sum_balance

(account)

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 Null Values

 It is possible for tuples to have a null value, denoted by

null, for some of their attributes

 null signifies an unknown value or that a value does not

exist.

 The result of any arithmetic expression involving null is

null.
 Aggregate functions simply ignore null values (as in

SQL)

 For duplicate elimination and grouping, null is treated

like any other value, and two nulls are assumed to be

the same (as in SQL)

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 Null Values
 Comparisons with null values return the special truth
value: unknown
 If false was used instead of unknown, then not (A <
5)
would not be equivalent to A >= 5
 Three-valued logic using the truth value unknown:
 OR: (unknown or true) = true,
(unknown or false) = unknown
(unknown or unknown) = unknown
 AND: (true and unknown) = unknown,
(false and unknown) = false,
(unknown and unknown) = unknown
 NOT: (not unknown) = unknown

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Modification of the Database
 The content of the database may be modified using
the following operations:
 Deletion
 Insertion
 Updating
 All these operations are expressed using the
assignment operator.

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 Deletion
 A delete request is expressed similarly to a query,
except instead of displaying tuples to the user, the
selected tuples are removed from the database.
 Can delete only whole tuples; cannot delete values
on only particular attributes
 A deletion is expressed in relational algebra by:
rr–E
where r is a relation and E is a relational algebra
query.

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 Deletion Examples
 Delete all account records in the Perryridge branch.

account  account – branch_name = “Perryridge” (account )

 Delete all loan records with amount in the range of 0 to 50

loan  loan – amount 0and amount  50 (loan)

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Insertion
 To insert data into a relation, we either:
 specify a tuple to be inserted
 write a query whose result is a set of tuples to be
inserted
 in relational algebra, an insertion is expressed by:
r r  E
where r is a relation and E is a relational algebra
expression.
 The insertion of a single tuple is expressed by letting E
be a constant relation containing one tuple.

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.44 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Insertion Examples
 Insert information in the database specifying that Smith
has $1200 in account A-973 at the Perryridge branch.

account  account  {(“A-973”, “Perryridge”, 1200)}

depositor  depositor  {(“Smith”, “A-973”)}

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.45 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Updating
 A mechanism to change a value in a tuple without
charging all values in the tuple
 Use the generalized projection operator to do this task

r   F ,F ,,F , (r )
1 2 l

 Each Fi is either
 the I th
attribute of r, if the I th
attribute is not updated,
or,
 if the attribute is to be updated Fi is an expression,
involving only constants and the attributes of r, which
gives the new value for the attribute

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.46 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Update Examples
 Make interest payments by increasing all balances by 5
percent.
account   account_number, branch_name, balance * 1.05 (account)

 Pay all accounts with balances over $10,000 6 percent

interest
and pay all others 5 percent
account   account_number, branch_name, balance * 1.06 ( BAL  10000
(account ))
  account_number, branch_name, balance * 1.05 (BAL  10000
(account))

atabase System Concepts - 5th Edition, Oct 5, 2006 2.47 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 End of Chapter 2

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
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