Chapter six

Query Language and Relational Query Languages

• A query language is a language in which user
requests information from the database.
• RQL:-Languages for describing queries on a
relational database
• Relational Algebra
– We begin with the notations used in RA and that
are unique to RA and are procedural, requiring a
sequence of operations to express a query
transaction

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 What is an Algebra?
• A language based on operators and a domain of values
• Operators map values taken from the domain into other
domain values
• Hence, an expression involving operators and arguments
produces a value in the domain
• When the domain is a set of all relations (and the operators are
as described later), we get the relational algebra
• We refer to the expression as a query and the value produced
as the query result

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 Relational Algebra
• Domain: set of relations
Fundamental Operations
SELECT
 PROJECT
 UNION
 SET DIFFERENCE
 CARTESIAN PRODUCT
• Select and project operations are unary operation as they
operate on a single relation. Union, set difference, Cartesian
product and operations are binary operations as they operate on
pairs of relations.

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 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 ( ) Tuples in reln. 1, but not in reln. 2.
– Union (  ) Tuples in reln. 1 and in reln. 2.
• Additional operations:
– Intersection, join, division, renaming: Not essential, but (very!)
useful.
• Since each operation returns a relation, operations can be
composed!
 Selection Condition
• Selects rows that satisfy • Operators: <, , , >,
selection condition.
• Schema of result identical to =, 
schema of (only) input relation. • Simple selection
• Result relation can be the input
for another relational algebra
condition:
operation. • <condition> AND
<condition>
• <condition> OR
<condition>
• NOT <condition>

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 Selection Condition - Examples
•  salary>3000 Or name=‘Tom’ (Employee)
•  nr>5 AND nr <8 (Employee)

•  NOT(name=‘John’) (Employee)
Table1: Employee •  nr 7 (Employee)

Note that the select operation in relational algebra has nothing to do with the SQL keyword select.
Selection in relational algebra returns those tuples in a relation that fulfil a condition, while the SQL
keyword select means "here comes an SQL statement".
 Projection
• 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 (only) input relation.
• Projection operator has to eliminate duplicates! (Why??, what are the consequences?)
– Note: real systems typically don’t do duplicate elimination unless the user
explicitly asks for it. (Why not?)
– where'Π. (pi) is the symbol used to represent the PROJECT
operation,and<attributelist>
– Is the desired list of attributes from the attributes of relation R
• Produces table containing subset of columns of argument table
attribute list(relation)
Example:
Person Name,Hobby(Person)
Id Name Address Hobby Name Hobby
1123 John 123 Main stamps John stamps
1123 John 123 Main coins John coins
5556 Mary 7 Lake Dr hiking Mary hiking
9876 Bart 5 Pine St stamps Bart stamps
 Project Operator
• Example:
Person Name,Address(Person)
Id Name Address Hobby Name Address

1123 John 123 Main stamps John 123 Main

1123 John 123 Main coins Mary 7 Lake Dr
5556 Mary 7 Lake Dr hiking Bart 5 Pine St
9876 Bart 5 Pine St stamps

Result is a table (no duplicates)

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 sid bid day
R1
22 101 10/10/96
58 103 11/12/96

S1
sid sname rating age
22 dustin 7 45.0
31 lubber 8 55.5
58 rusty 10 35.0 sid sname rating age
28 yuppy 9 35.0
S2 31 lubber 8 55.5
44 guppy 5 35.0
58 rusty 10 35.0
Union, Intersection, Set-Difference
• union: The result of this operation, denoted by R U
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.
• intersection: The result of this operation, denoted
by R n S, is a relation that includes all tuples that
are in both R and S.
• set difference(or MINUS):The result of this
operation, denoted by R - S, is a relation that
includes all tuples that are in R but not in S.
 Union, Intersection, Set-Difference
sid sname rating age
• All of these operations take two 22 dustin 7 45.0
input relations, which must be 31 lubber 8 55.5
union-compatible: 58 rusty 10 35.0
– Same number of fields. 44 guppy 5 35.0
28 yuppy 9 35.0
– `Corresponding’ fields
S1 S2
have the same type.
• What is the schema of result? sid sname rating age
sid sname rating age 31 lubber 8 55.5
22 dustin 7 45.0 58 rusty 10 35.0
S1 S2 S1 S2
 Cross-Product
• Each row of S1 is paired with each row of R1.
• Result schema has one field per field of S1 and
R1, with field names `inherited’ if possible.
– C=AXB
(sid) sname rating age (sid) bid day
22 dustin 7 45.0 22 101 10/ 10/ 96
22 dustin 7 45.0 58 103 11/ 12/ 96
31 lubber 8 55.5 22 101 10/ 10/ 96
31 lubber 8 55.5 58 103 11/ 12/ 96
58 rusty 10 35.0 22 101 10/ 10/ 96
58 rusty 10 35.0 58 103 11/ 12/ 96
 Cont..
• Notice that both UNION and INTERSECTION
are commutative operations; that is,R U S=SU
R, and RnS=SnR
• Both UNION and INTERSECTION can be
treated as n-ary operations applicable to any
number of relations because both are
associative operations;that is,RU (S U T)=(RU
S) U T, and (RnS)nT=Rn(S nT)
• The MINUS operation is not commutative;that
is, in general,R-S#S-R
 Relational calculus

• Expression to specify a retrieval request, and hence there is no

description of how to evaluate a query.
• A calculus expression specifies what is to be retrieved rather than
how to retrieve it.
• Therefore , the relational calculus is considered to be a non
procedural language. This differs from relational algebra, where
we must write sequence of operations to specify a retrieval
request;
• hence, it can be considered as a procedural way of stating a query.
• It is possible to nest algebra operations to form a single
expression;
• How ever, a certain order among the operations is always
explicitly specified in a relational algebra expression.
 Cont..
A simple tuple relational calculus query is of the form {t I 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).
• The AND, OR, and NOT logical operators are also used in the
expressions. An example of a RC expression is:
• {t | STUDENT(t) AND t. GPA > 3.0}
• This query would return all students whose GPA is greater than 3.0.
• Expressions and Formulas in RC as noted by Elmasri et al are in the
form:
• {t1.Aj, t2.Ak,…, tn.Am | COND(t1, t2, …, tn, tn+1, tn+2, …, tn+m)}
• Where COND is the condition or formula.
 Cont..
• For example2, to find all employees whose salary is
above $50,000, we can write the following tuple
calculus expression:[r I EMPLOYEE(t) and
t.SALARy>50000}
• The condition EMPLOYEE(t) specifies that the range
relation of tuple variable t is EMPLOYEE. Each
EMPLOYEE tuple t r that satisfies the condition
t.SALARy>50000 will be retrieved.
• Notice that t.SALARY references attribute SALARY
of tuple variable t; this notation resembles how
attribute names are qualified with relation names or
aliases in SQL,
 Cont..
• as we shall see in the above query retrieves all attribute values
for each selected EMPLOYEE tuple r . To Retrieve only some
of the attributes say , the first and last names-we write
{t.FNAME, t.LANME I EMPLOYEE(t) AND
t.SALARy>50000}
• Informally, we need to specify the following information in a
tuple calculus expression:
For each tuple variable t, the range relation R of t. This value is
specified by a condition of the form R(t).
 cont.
QUERY1
• Retrieve the birth date and address of the employee(or
employees)whose name is'John Bekel Smith'.
• Q1:{t.BDATE, t.ADDRESS I EMPLOYEE(t) AND
t.FNAME='John' AND t.MIDLNA='B' AND
t.LNAME='Smith'}
• ln tuple relational calculus, we first specify the requested
attributes t.BDATE and t.ADDRESS for each selected
tuple r. Then we specify the condition or selecting a tuple
following the bar (I)-namely , that t be a tuple of the
EMPLOYEE relation whose FNAME, t.MIDLNA And
LNAME attribute values are 'John', 'B', and 'Smith',
respectively.
 Universal and extensile quantifier

• Universal quantifier (∀): Is true if all tuples make the formula

true.
• Existential quantifier (∃): Is true if there exists some tuple that
makes the formula true.
• Read example of them more?
 Sql language
Sql is
stands for structured query language. standard
language for accessing and manipulating
database Sql language(
 DDL(create , drop, alter ),
 DML(select, update, Insert , delete ))
Sql is not case sensitive
After sql statement semicolon(,)
Primary key can’t be null
 Cont..
• The SQL language may be considered one of
the major reasons for the success of relational
databases in the commercial world.
• Because it be came a standard for relational
databases, users were less concerned about
migrating their database applications from
Other types of database systems for example ,
network or hierarchical systems-to relational
systems
 Cont..
• SQL is a comprehensive database language: It
has statements for data definition, query, and
update. Hence, it is both a DML. In addition, it
has facilities for Defining views on the
database, for specifying security and
authorization, for defining integrity
constraints, and for specifying transaction
controls.
 Query Sublanguage of SQL
• Select,where,from,create,delete,drop,update,
alter ……are sql keywords read more from lab
practicing
 Duplicates

• Duplicate rows not allowed in a relation

• However, duplicate elimination from query
result is costly and not automatically done; it
must be explicitly requested:

SELECT DISTINCT …..

FROM …..

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 The differences b/n them
• Relational Algebra (RA) and Relational Calculus (RC) are formal
languages for the database relational model while
• SQL is the practical language in the database relational model.
• In these formal languages a conceptual database model is expressed in
mathematical terms and notations while in the practical language –
SQL, the mathematical expressions of the functionality and transaction
of the database operations are implemented physically.
• Each language, that RA, RC, and SQL have their own notations to
express their notations.
• RA Notations – Procedural Expression Language
• RC Notation – Non Procedural Expression Language
• SQL is what is called a declarative language or non procedural , meaning
that you only need to specify what needs to be accomplished (such as a
query or insert) and not how to do it; the DBMS determines and
performs internally the step by step operation needed to obtain the
result.
 Cont..
• For more about SQL
Read your lab class handout
 d !
En