Relational Algebra

Introduction
• Relational algebra
– Basic set of operations for the relational model
– More operational (procedural), very useful for
representing execution plans.

• Relational calculus
– Higher-level declarative language for specifying
relational queries
– Lets users describe what they want, rather than
how to compute it: Non-operational, declarative.
 Relational Algebra
• Relational algebra operations work on one or more relations to define
another relation without changing the original relations.

• Both operands and results are relations, so output from one

operation can become input to another operation.

• Allows expressions to be nested, just as in arithmetic. This property is

called closure.

• Five basic operations in relational algebra: Selection, Projection,

Cartesian product, Union and Set Difference.

• These perform most of the data retrieval operations needed.

• Also have Join, Intersection, and Division operations, which can be

expressed in terms of 5 basic operations.
 Relational Algebra

• Basic operations:
– Selection (  ) Selects a subset of rows from relation.
– Projection ( 
) Deletes unwanted columns from relation.
– Cross-product ( ) Allows us to combine two relations.
– Set-difference (
– Union (

) Tuples in reln. 1, but not in reln. 2.
 ) Tuples in reln. 1 and in reln. 2.
• Additional operations:
– Intersection, join, division, renaming: Not essential, but (very!) useful.
Relational Algebra Operations
Relational Algebra Operations
 Selection (or Restriction)
• predicate (R)
– Works on a single relation R and defines a relation that contains only
those tuples (rows) of R that satisfy the specified condition (predicate).
– Selects rows that satisfy selection condition.
– No duplicates in result!
– Schema of result identical to schema of input relation.
– Selection is distributive over binary operators
– Selection is commutative

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 Example - Selection Restriction)
• List all staff with a salary greater than £10,000.

salary > 10000 (Staff)

 Projection
• col1, . . . , coln(R)
– Works on a single relation R and defines a relation that
contains a vertical subset of R, extracting the values of
specified attributes and eliminating duplicates.
– Deletes attributes that are not in projection list.
– Schema of result contains exactly the fields in the
projection list, with the same names that they had in the
input relation.
– Projection operator has to eliminate duplicates!

Note: real systems typically don’t do duplicate elimination unless the user
explicitly asks for it (by DISTINCT). Why not?
 Example - Projection
• Produce a list of salaries for all staff, showing only staffNo, fName,
lName, and salary details.

staffNo, fName, lName, salary(Staff)

 Union
• RS
– Union of two relations R and S defines a relation
that contains all the tuples of R, or S, or both R
and S, duplicate tuples being eliminated.
– R and S must be union-compatible.

• If R and S have I and J tuples, respectively, union is obtained by

concatenating them into one relation with a maximum of (I + J) tuples.
 Example - UNION
• List all cities where there is either a branch office or a property for rent.

city(Branch)  city(PropertyForRent)
 Set Difference
• R–S
– Defines a relation consisting of the tuples that are
in relation R, but not in S.
– R and S must be union-compatible.
 Example - Set Difference
• List all cities where there is a branch office but no properties for rent.

city(Branch) – city(PropertyForRent)
 Intersection
• RS
– Defines a relation consisting of the set of all tuples
that are in both R and S.
– R and S must be union-compatible.

• Expressed using basic operations:

R  S = R – (R – S)
 Example - Intersection
• List all cities where there is both a branch office and at least one property
for rent.

city(Branch)  city(PropertyForRent)
 Cartesian product
• RXS
– Defines a relation that is the concatenation of
every tuple of relation “R with every tuple of
relation S”
 Example - Cartesian product
• List the names and comments of all clients who have viewed a property for
rent.
(clientNo, fName, lName(Client)) X (clientNo, propertyNo, comment
(Viewing))

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 Example - Cartesian product and
Selection
• Use selection operation to extract those tuples where Client.clientNo =
Viewing.clientNo.
sClient.clientNo = Viewing.clientNo((ÕclientNo, fName, lName(Client)) 
(ÕclientNo, propertyNo, comment(Viewing)))

 Cartesian product and Selection can be reduced to a single operation called a Join.

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 Join Operations
• JOINs can be used to combine tables
• Join is a derivative of Cartesian product.

• Equivalent to performing a Selection, using join predicate as selection

formula, over Cartesian product of the two operand relations.

• One of the most difficult operations to implement efficiently in an

RDBMS and one reason why RDBMSs have intrinsic performance
problems.

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 Join Operations
• Various forms of join operation
– JOIN (Inner Join) : Return rows when there is at least
one match in both tables
– LEFT JOIN(Left Outer Join): Return all rows from the
left table, even if there are no matches in the right table
– RIGHT JOIN(Right Outer Join): Return all rows from the
right table, even if there are no matches in the left table
– FULL JOIN: Return rows when there is a match in one
of the tables

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 SQL INNER JOIN Syntax
SELECT column_name(s) FROM table_name1 INNER JOIN table_name2
ON
table_name1.column_name=table_name2.column_name

INNER JOIN is the same as JOIN

The word "INNER" is optional
Example*- Inner Join
Left Join
Example - Left Join
Right Join
Example – Right Join
Full Join
Example – Full Join
 FAQ
1. How does Tuple-oriented relational calculus differ from domain-oriented
relational calculus?
2. Define Relational Algebra and Relational Calculus
3. What is degree of a Relation?
4. What is a Relation Schema and a Relation?
5. List various Operators used in Relational Algebra and Calculus
6. Solve the given by relational algebra. The Relations are :
• Emp(empno,ename,sal,job,comm,deptno)
• Dept (deptno,dname,dloc)
• Create a query to list unique jobs that are in deptno 30 and include the
location of department 30 in output
 References

OTHER REFRENCES
• https://cs.uwaterloo.ca/~tozsu/courses/CS348/notes/4b-calculus-handout-notes.pdf
• http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/kathleen/classes/cs3200/4-RAAndRC.pdf
• https://www2.cs.sfu.ca/CourseCentral/354/louie/Chap3_practice.pdf
• http://www.nyu.edu/classes/jcf/CSCI-GA.2433-001_fa11/slides/session5/RelationalAlgebra-
RelationalCalculus-SQL.pdf
• https://blog.inf.ed.ac.uk/da15/files/2015/01/inf1-da-15-t3.pdf
• DatabaseSystemConceptsbySudarshan,Korth(McGraw-HillEducation)

• FundamentalsofDatabaseSystemByElmasari&Navathe-PearsonEducation

• http://ecomputernotes.com/database-system/rdbms

• https://www.tutorialspoint.com/sql/sql-rdbms-concepts.htm

• https://www.studytonight.com/dbms/rdbms-concept
SUGGESTED BOOK REFERENCES
• Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe,“Fundamentals of Database System”,
The Benjamin / Cummings Publishing Co.
• Korth and Silberschatz Abraham, “Database SystemConcepts”, McGraw Hall.
• Pratt,”DBMS”, Cengage Learning.