Chapter 4

Relational Data Model

Pearson Education © 2009

Chapter Outline
 Relational Model Concepts

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 2

Relational Model Concepts
 The relational Model of Data is based on the concept of a
Relation
 The strength of the relational approach to data management
comes from the formal foundation provided by the theory of
relations
 We review the essentials of the formal relational model in
this chapter
 In practice, there is a standard query language based on
this model called Structured Query Language (SQL)
which is described in Chapters 6, 7, and 8

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 3

Relational Model Concepts
 A Relation is a mathematical concept based on
the ideas of sets
 The model was first introduced by Dr. E.F. Codd
of IBM Research in 1970 in the following paper:
 "A Relational Model for Large Shared Data
Banks," Communications of the ACM, June 1970
 The above paper caused a major revolution in the
field of database management and earned Dr.
Codd the coveted ACM Turing Award

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 4

Informal Definitions

 Informally, a relation looks like a table of values.

 A relation typically contains a set of rows.

 The data elements in each row represent certain facts that

correspond to a real-world entity or relationship

In the formal model, rows are called tuples
 Each column has a column header that gives an indication
of the meaning of the data items in that column

In the formal model, the column header is called an attribute
name (or just attribute)

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Example of a Relation

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Informal Definitions
 Key of a Relation:
 Each row has a value of a data item (or set of items) that
uniquely identifies that row in the table

Called the key
 In the STUDENT table, SSN is the key
 The key is called a natural key if it already exists in the
table. For example, SSN
 The key is called artificial key (also called surrogate key)
if it is automatically generated at insertion time
to identify the rows in the table. For example, student
number and employee number

It is called artificial because it does not exist in the natural
world and it is created for identification purposes only
Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 7
Formal Definitions - Schema
 The Schema (or description) of a Relation:
 Denoted by R(A1, A2, .....An)
 R is the name of the relation
 The attributes of the relation are A1, A2, ..., An
 Example:
CUSTOMER (Cust-id, Cust-name, Address, Phone#)
 CUSTOMER is the relation name
 Defined over the four attributes: Cust-id, Cust-name,
Address, Phone#
 Each attribute has a domain or a set of valid values.
 For example, the domain of Cust-id is 6 digit numbers.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 8

Formal Definitions - Tuple
 A tuple is an ordered set of values (enclosed in angled
brackets ‘< … >’)
 Each value is derived from an appropriate domain.
 A row in the CUSTOMER relation is a 4-tuple and would
consist of four values, for example:
 <632895, "John Smith", "101 Main St. Atlanta, GA 30332",
"(404) 894-2000">
 This is called a 4-tuple as it has 4 values
 A tuple (row) in the CUSTOMER relation.
 A relation is a set of such tuples (rows)

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 9

Formal Definitions - State
 The relation state is a subset of the Cartesian
product of the domains of its attributes
 each domain contains the set of all possible values
the attribute can take.
 Example: attribute Cust-name is defined over the
domain of character strings of maximum length
25
 dom(Cust-name) is varchar(25)

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 10

Formal Definitions - Summary
 Formally,
 Given R(A1, A2, .........., An)
 r(R)  dom (A1) X dom (A2) X ....X dom(An)
 R(A1, A2, …, An) is the schema of the relation
 R is the name of the relation
 A1, A2, …, An are the attributes of the relation
 r(R): a specific state (or "value" or “population”) of
relation R – this is a set of tuples (rows)
 r(R) = {t1, t2, …, tm} where each ti is an n-tuple
 ti = <v1, v2, …, vn> where each vj element-of dom(Aj)

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 11

Formal Definitions - Example
 Let R(A1, A2) be a relation schema:
 Let dom(A1) = {0,1}
 Let dom(A2) = {a,b,c}
 Then: dom(A1) X dom(A2) is all possible combinations:
{<0,a> , <0,b> , <0,c>, <1,a>, <1,b>, <1,c>}

 The relation state r(R)  dom(A1) X dom(A2)

 For example: r(R) could be {<0,a> , <0,b> , <1,c>}
 this is one possible state (or “population” or “extension”) r of
the relation R, defined over A1 and A2.
 It has three 2-tuples: <0,a> , <0,b> , <1,c>

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 12

Definition Summary
Informal Terms Formal Terms
Table Relation
Column Header Attribute
All possible Column Domain
Values
Row Tuple

Table Definition Schema of a Relation

Populated Table State of the Relation

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Example – A relation STUDENT

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Characteristics Of Relations
 Ordering of tuples in a relation r(R):
 The tuples are not considered to be ordered,

even though they appear to be in the tabular

form.
 Ordering of attributes in a relation schema R (and
of values within each tuple):
 We will consider the attributes in R(A1, A2, ...,

An) and the values in t=<v1, v2, ..., vn> to be

ordered .

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 15

Same state as previous Figure (but
with different order of tuples)

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Characteristics Of Relations
 Values in a tuple:
 All values are considered atomic (indivisible).
- That is, we cannot refer to or directly access a
subpart of the value
 Each value in a tuple must be from the domain of
the attribute for that column

If tuple t = <v1, v2, …, vn> is a tuple (row) in the
relation state r of R(A1, A2, …, An)

Then each vi must be a value from dom(Ai)
 A special null value is used to represent values
that are unknown or inapplicable to certain tuples.
Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 17
Characteristics Of Relations
 Notation:
 We refer to component values of a tuple t by:

t[Ai] or t.Ai

This is the value vi of attribute Ai for tuple t
 Similarly, t[Au, Av, ..., Aw] refers to the subtuple of t
containing the values of attributes Au, Av, ..., Aw,
respectively in t

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 18

Relational Integrity Constraints
 Constraints are conditions that must hold on all valid
relation states.
 There are three main types of constraints in the relational
model:
 Key constraints
 Entity integrity constraints
 Referential integrity constraints
 Another implicit constraint is the domain constraint
 Every value in a tuple must be from the domain of its
attribute (or it could be null, if allowed for that attribute)

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 19

Key Constraints
 Superkey of R:
 Is a set of attributes SK of R with the following condition:

No two tuples in any valid relation state r(R) will have the
same value for SK

That is, for any distinct tuples t1 and t2 in r(R), t1[SK]  t2[SK]

This condition must hold in any valid state r(R)
 Key of R:
 A "minimal" superkey
 That is, a key is a superkey K such that removal of any
attribute from K results in a set of attributes that is not a
superkey (does not possess the superkey uniqueness
property)

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 20

Key Constraints (continued)
 Example: Consider the CAR relation schema:
 CAR(State, Reg#, SerialNo, Make, Model, Year)
 CAR has two keys:

Key1 = {State, Reg#}

Key2 = {SerialNo}
 Both are also minimal superkeys of CAR
 {SerialNo, Make, Year} is a superkey but not a key.
 In general:
 Any key must be a minimal superkey and any minimal
superkey is also a key
 Any set of attributes that includes a key is a superkey

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 21

Key Constraints (continued)
 If a relation has several candidate keys, one is chosen
arbitrarily to be the primary key.

The primary key attributes are underlined

The other candidate keys are called secondary keys
 Example: Consider the CAR relation schema:

CAR(State, Reg#, SerialNo, Make, Model, Year)

We chose SerialNo as the primary key
 The primary key value is used to uniquely identify each
tuple in a relation

Provides the tuple identity
 Also used to reference the tuple from another tuple

General rule: Choose as primary key the smallest of the
candidate keys (in terms of size)

Not always applicable – choice is sometimes subjective

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CAR table with two candidate keys –
LicenseNumber chosen as Primary Key

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Relational Database Schema
 Relational Database Schema:
 A set S of relation schemas that belong to the
same database.
 S is the name of the whole database schema
 S = {R1, R2, ..., Rn}
 R1, R2, …, Rn are the names of the individual
relation schemas within the database S
 Following slide shows a COMPANY database
schema with 6 relation schemas

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COMPANY Database Schema

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Entity Integrity
 Entity Integrity:
 The primary key attributes PK of each relation schema

R in S cannot have null values in any tuple of r(R).


This is because primary key values are used to identify the
individual tuples.

t[PK]  null for any tuple t in r(R)

If PK has several attributes, null is not allowed in any of these
attributes
 Note: Other attributes of R may be constrained to
disallow null values, even though they are not
members of the primary key.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 26

Referential Integrity
 A constraint involving two relations
 The previous constraints involve a single relation.
 Used to specify a relationship among tuples in
two relations:
 The referencing relation and the referenced
relation.

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Referential Integrity
 Tuples in the referencing relation R1 have
attributes FK (called foreign key attributes) that
reference the primary key attributes PK of the
referenced relation R2.
 A tuple t1 in R1 is said to reference a tuple t2 in
R2 if t1[FK] = t2[PK].
 A referential integrity constraint can be displayed
in a relational database schema as a directed arc
from R1.FK to R2.PK

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 28

Referential Integrity (or foreign key)
Constraint
 Statement of the constraint
 The value in the foreign key column FK of the
referencing relation R1 can be either:

(1) a value of an existing primary key value of a
corresponding primary key PK in the referenced
relation R2, or

(2) a null.
 In case (2), the FK in R1 should not be a part of
its own primary key.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 29

Displaying a relational database
schema and its constraints
 Each relation schema can be displayed as a row of
attribute names
 The name of the relation is written above the attribute
names
 The primary key attribute (or attributes) will be underlined
 A foreign key (referential integrity) constraints is displayed
as a directed arc (arrow) from the foreign key attributes to
the referenced table
 Can also point the the primary key of the referenced relation
for clarity
 Next slide shows the COMPANY relational schema
diagram

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Referential Integrity Constraints for COMPANY database

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Populated database state
 Each relation will have many tuples in its current relation
state
 The relational database state is a union of all the
individual relation states
 Whenever the database is changed, a new state arises
 Basic operations for changing the database:
 INSERT a new tuple in a relation
 DELETE an existing tuple from a relation
 MODIFY an attribute of an existing tuple
 Next slide shows an example state for the COMPANY
database

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