Chapter 2: Intro to Relational Model

Database System Concepts, 7th Ed.

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

 Structure of Relational Databases

 Database Schema
 Keys
 Schema Diagrams
 Relational Query Languages
 The Relational Algebra

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Data model
 A data model is a collection of conceptual tools for describing
 data,
 data relationships,
 data semantics, and
 consistency constraints.
 The relational model uses a collection of tables to represent both data
and the relationships among those data.
 Its conceptual simplicity has led to its widespread adoption; today a
vast majority of database products are based on the relational model.
 The relational model describes data at the logical and view levels,
abstracting away low-level details of data storage.
 It’s the primary data model for commercial data-processing
applications. It attained its primary position because of
 its simplicity,
 eases the job of the programmer, compared to earlier data
models such as the network model or the hierarchical model.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of a Instructor Relation
 A relational database consists of a collection of tables, each of which is assigned a unique
name.
 Stores information about instructors.
 The table has four column headers: ID, name, dept name, and salary
 Each row of this table records information about an instructor, consisting of the instructor’s ID,
name, dept name, and salary attributes
(or columns)

each instructor is tuples

identified by the value
(or rows)
of the column ID,

a row in the table can a row in a table

be thought of as represents a
representing the relationship
relationship between among a set of
a specified ID and values. Since a
the corresponding table is a
values for name, collection of
dept name, and
such
salary
relationships,
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relation
 there is a close correspondence between the concept of table and the mathematical
concept of relation, from which the relational data model takes its name.
 In mathematical terminology,
 a tuple is simply a sequence (or list) of values.
 A relationship between n values is represented mathematically by an n-tuple
of values, that is, a tuple with n values, which corresponds to a row in a table.
 In the relational model the term relation is used to refer to a table, while the term
tuple is used to refer to a row, and the term attribute refers to a column of a table.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of a Course Relation and Prereq relation

Figure 2.2 The course relation.

each course is identified by the value of the column
course id.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relation Schema and Instance
 A1, A2, …, An are attributes
 R = (A1, A2, …, An ) is a relation schema

Example:
instructor = (ID, name, dept_name, salary)
 A relation instance r defined over schema R is denoted by r (R).
 The current values a relation are specified by a table
 An element t of relation r is called a tuple and is represented by a row in a table

 We use the term relation instance to refer to a specific instance of a relation, that is,
containing a specific set of rows.
 The instance of instructor shown in Figure 2.1 has 12 tuples, corresponding to 12
instructors.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Attributes
 The set of allowed values for each attribute is called the domain of the attribute
 For each attribute of a relation, there is a set of permitted values, called the
domain of that attribute.
 the domain of the salary attribute of the instructor relation is the set of all
possible salary values,
 while the domain of the name attribute is the set of all possible instructor
names.
 We require that, for all relations r, the domains of all attributes of r be atomic.
 A domin is atomic if elements of the domain are considered to be indivisible
units.
– For example, suppose the table instructor had an attribute phone number,
which can store a set of phone numbers corresponding to the instructor.
– Then the domain of phone number would not be atomic, since an
element of the domain is a set of phone numbers, and it has subparts,
namely, the individual phone numbers in the set.
 Attribute values are (normally) required to be atomic; that is, indivisible
 The special value null is a member of every domain. Indicated that the value is
“unknown”
 The null value causes complications in the definition of many operations

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relations are Unordered

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

 Example: instructor relation with unordered tuples

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Database Schema
 Database schema -- is the logical structure (design) of the database.
 consists of a list of attributes and their corresponding domains
 Database instance -- is a snapshot of the data in the database at a given
instant in time.
 Example: The concept of a
relation instance
 schema: instructor (ID, name, dept_name, salary) corresponds to the
 Instance: programming-language
notion of a value of a
variable.

The value of a given

variable may change
with time;

similarly the contents of

a relation instance may
change with time as the
relation is updated.

In contrast, the schema

of a relation does not
generally change.
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Keys
 We must have a way to specify how tuples within a given relation are distinguished
 the values of the attribute values of a tuple must be such that they can uniquely identify
the tuple.
 In other words, no two tuples in a relation are allowed to have exactly the same value for
all attributes.
 Let K  R
 K is a superkey of R if values for K are sufficient to identify a unique tuple of each possible
relation r(R)
 Example: {ID} and {ID,name} are both superkeys of instructor.
 {name} attribute is not a super key several instructors might have the same name

 Superkey K is a candidate key if K is minimal; {ID, name} is not a candidate key since for
Example: {ID} alone is a candidate key for Instructor
 One of the candidate keys is selected to be the primary key.
 Which one? (The primary key should be chosen such that its attribute values are never, or
are very rarely, changed)
 Foreign key constraint: Value in one relation must appear in another
 Referencing relation  Example: dept_name in instructor is a foreign key from
instructor referencing department
 Referenced relation  department is called referenced relation

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schema Diagram for University Database

Figure 2.8 Schema of the university database.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Schema Diagram for University Database

a two-headed arrow from time slot id in the section relation to time slot id in the
time slot relation represents the referential integrity constraint from section.time slot
id to time slot.time slot id.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relational Query Languages
 Procedural versus non-procedural, or declarative
 declarative query language the user describes the desired information without
giving a specific sequence of steps or function calls for obtaining that
information;
 the desired information is typically described using some form of
mathematical logic.
 It is the job of the database system to figure out how to obtain the desired
information.
 “Pure” languages:
 Relational algebra: forms the theoretical basis of the SQL query language.
 Tuple relational calculus: declarative
 Domain relational calculus: declarative
 The above 3 pure languages are equivalent in computing power
 We will concentrate in this chapter on relational algebra
 Not Turing-machine equivalent
 Consists of 6 basic operations

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relational Algebra
 A procedural language consisting of a set of operations that take one or
two relations as input and produce a new relation as their result.
 Six basic operators
 select: 
 project: 
 union: 
 set difference: –
 Cartesian product: x
 rename: 
 , , and  are unary operations because they operate
on one relation
 , – , and x are binary operations because they
operate on pairs of relations

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Select Operation

 The select operation selects tuples that satisfy a given predicate.

 Notation:  p (r)
 p is called the selection predicate
 Example: select those tuples of the instructor relation where the instructor
is in the “Physics” department.
 Query

 dept_name=“Physics” (instructor)
 Result

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Select Operation (Cont.)

 We allow comparisons using

=, , >, . <. 
in the selection predicate.
 We can combine several predicates into a larger predicate by using the
connectives:
 (and),  (or),  (not)
 Example: Find the instructors in Physics with a salary greater $90,000, we
write:

 dept_name=“Physics”  salary > 90,000 (instructor)

 The select predicate may include comparisons between two attributes.
 Example, find all departments whose name is the same as their
building name:
  (department)
dept_name=building

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Project Operation

 A unary operation that returns its argument relation, with certain attributes
left out.
 Notation:

 A1,A2,A3 ….Ak (r)

where A1, A2, …, Ak 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

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Project Operation Example
 Example: eliminate the dept_name attribute of instructor
 Query:
ID, name, salary (instructor)
 Result:

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Composition of Relational Operations

 The result of a relational-algebra operation is relation and therefore of

relational-algebra operations can be composed together into a
relational-algebra expression.
 Consider the query -- Find the names of all instructors in the Physics
department.

name( dept_name =“Physics” (instructor))

 Instead of giving the name of a relation as the argument of the projection

operation, we give an expression that evaluates to a relation.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Cartesian-Product Operation
 The Cartesian-product operation (denoted by X) allows us to combine
information from any two relations.
 Example: the Cartesian product of the relations instructor and teaches is
written as:
instructor X teaches
 We construct a tuple of the result out of each possible pair of tuples: one
from the instructor relation and one from the teaches relation (see next
slide)
 Since the instructor ID appears in both relations we distinguish between
these attribute by attaching to the attribute the name of the relation from
which the attribute originally came.
 instructor.ID
 teaches.ID

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The instructor X teaches table

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Join Operation

 The Cartesian-Product
instructor X teaches
associates every tuple of instructor with every tuple of teaches.
 Most of the resulting rows have information about instructors who did
NOT teach a particular course.
 To get only those tuples of “instructor X teaches “ that pertain to
instructors and the courses that they taught, we write:
 instructor.id = teaches.id (instructor x teaches ))

 We get only those tuples of “instructor X teaches” that pertain to

instructors and the courses that they taught.
 The result of this expression, shown in the next slide

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Join Operation (Cont.)
 The table corresponding to:
 instructor.id = teaches.id (instructor x teaches))

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Join Operation (Cont.)

 The join operation allows us to combine a select operation and a

Cartesian-Product operation into a single operation.
 Consider relations r (R) and s (S)
 Let “theta” be a predicate on attributes in the schema R “union” S. The
join operation r s is defined as follows:

 Thus
instructor.id = teaches.id (instructor x teaches ))

 Can equivalently be written as

instructorInstructor.id = teaches.idteaches.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Union Operation

 The union operation allows us to combine two relations

 Notation: r  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 courses taught in the Fall 2017 semester, or in the
Spring 2018 semester, or in both
course_id ( semester=“Fall” Λ year=2017 (section)) 
course_id ( semester=“Spring” Λ year=2018 (section))

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Union Operation (Cont.)

 Result of:
course_id ( semester=“Fall” Λ year=2017 (section)) 
course_id ( semester=“Spring” Λ year=2018 (section))

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Set-Intersection Operation
 The set-intersection operation allows us to find tuples that are in both
the input relations.
 Notation: r  s
 Assume:
 r, s have the same arity
 attributes of r and s are compatible
 Example: Find the set of all courses taught in both the Fall 2017 and the
Spring 2018 semesters.
course_id ( semester=“Fall” Λ year=2017 (section)) 
course_id ( semester=“Spring” Λ year=2018 (section))

 Result

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Set Difference Operation
 The set-difference operation allows us to find tuples that are in one relation
but are not in another.
 Notation r – 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

 Example: to find all courses taught in the Fall 2017 semester, but not in the
Spring 2018 semester
course_id ( semester=“Fall” Λ year=2017 (section)) −
course_id ( semester=“Spring” Λ year=2018 (section))

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Assignment Operation
 It is convenient at times to write a relational-algebra expression by
assigning parts of it to temporary relation variables.
 The assignment operation is denoted by  and works like assignment in
a programming language.
 Example: Find all instructor in the “Physics” and Music department.

Physics   dept_name=“Physics” (instructor)

Music   dept_name=“Music” (instructor)
Physics  Music

 With the assignment operation, a query can be written as a sequential

program consisting of a series of assignments followed by an expression
whose value is displayed as the result of the query.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Rename Operation
 The results of relational-algebra expressions do not have a name that we
can use to refer to them. The rename operator,  , is provided for that
purpose
 The expression:
x (E)
returns the result of expression E under the name x
 Another form of the rename operation:
x(A1,A2, .. An) (E)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.31 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Equivalent Queries

 There is more than one way to write a query in relational algebra.

 Example: Find information about courses taught by instructors in the
Physics department with salary greater than 90,000
 Query 1
 dept_name=“Physics”  salary > 90,000 (instructor)

 Query 2
 dept_name=“Physics” ( salary > 90.000 (instructor))

 The two queries are not identical; they are, however, equivalent -- they
give the same result on any database.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.32 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Equivalent Queries

 There is more than one way to write a query in relational algebra.

 Example: Find information about courses taught by instructors in the
Physics department
 Query 1
dept_name=“Physics” (instructorinstructor.ID = teaches.IDteaches)

 Query 2
(dept_name=“Physics” (instructor))instructor.ID = teaches.IDteaches

 The two queries are not identical; they are, however, equivalent -- they
give the same result on any database.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.33 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Instructor Relation

 In the instance of instructor shown in Fig. 2.1, no two instructors have the
same name. From this, can we conclude that name can be used as a
superkey (or primary key) of instructor?
• Answer: No. For this possible instance of the instructor table the
names are unique, but in general this may not be always the case
(unless the university has a rule that two instructors cannot have the
same name, which is a rather unlikey scenario).

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.34 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Course Relation

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.35 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.36 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.37 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example

 Consider the foreign key constraint from the dept name attribute of
instructor to the department relation.
• Give examples of inserts and deletes to these relations, which can
cause a violation of the foreign key constraint.
• Answer:
 Inserting a tuple: (10111, Ostrom, Economics, 110,000) into the
instructor table, where the department table does not have the
department Economics, would violate the foreign key constraint

 Deleting the tuple: (Biology, Watson, 90000) from the department

table, where at least one student or instructor tuple has dept name
as Biology, would violate the foreign key constraint.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.38 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example 2
 Consider the following expressions, which use the result of a relational algebra
operation as the input to another operation. For each expression, explain in
words what the expression does?
Note that

a) For each student who takes at least one course in 2009, display the
students information along with the information about what courses the
student took. The attributes in the result are:
• ID, name, dept name, tot cred, course id, section id, semester, year,
grade

b) The result is similar to (a); the selection can be done before the join operation
as well.
c) Provide a list of consisting of ID, name, course id of all students who took any
course in the university.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.39 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example 3

 Consider the relational database of the following relations. What are the
appropriate primary keys?

 Assume that the employee can work in more than company

 employee (person_name, street, city)

 Works(person_name, company_name, salary)
 Company(company_name, city)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example 4
 Consider the following employee database.
• employee (person_name, street, city)
• Works(person_name, company_name, salary)
• Company(company_name, city)
 Give an expression in the relational algebra to express each of the
following queries:
• Find the name of each employee who lives in city “Miami”.

• Find the name of each employee whose salary is greater than

$100000.

• Find the name of each employee who lives in “Miami” and whose
salary is greater than $100000.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.41 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Exercises

 Consider the following employee database.

• employee (person_name, street, city)
• Works(person_name, company_name, salary)
• Company(company_name, city)
 Give an expression in the relational algebra to express each of the following
queries:

1. Find the name of each employee who does not work for “BigBank”.
2. Find the name of each employee who works for “BigBank”.
3. Find the name, and city of residence of each employee who works for
“BigBank”.
4. Find the name, street address, and city of residence of each employee who
works for “BigBank” and earns more than $10000.
5. Find the name of each employee in this database who lives in the same city as
the company for which she or he works.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.42 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example 4
 branch(branch_name, branch city, assets)
 customer (ID, customer_name, customer_street, customer city)
 loan (loan_number, branch name, amount)
 borrower (ID, loan_number)
 account (account_number, branch_name, balance)
 depositor (ID, account_number)

 Consider the previous bank database. Give an expression in the relational algebra
for each of the following queries.
a) Find the names of all branches located in “Chicago”.

b) Find the names of all borrowers who have a loan in branch “Downtown”.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 End of Chapter 2

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 2.44 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan