UNIT 2: RELATIONAL

MODEL
 Relational Model
 Basic structure of relational databases

 Database schema,

 keys, Schema diagrams,

 Relational Query languages,

 Relational algebra-Fundamental,

 Additional and Extended Relational Algebra

Operations
RELATIONAL MODEL

 The relational model is today the primary data model for

commercial data processing applications.
 Relational Model (RM) represents the database as a
collection of relations. A relation is nothing but a table of
values.
 These rows in the table denote a real-world entity or
relationship
 The data are represented as a set of relations. In the relational
model, data are stored as tables.
 The physical storage of the data is independent of the way the
data are logically organized.
 Some popular Relational Database management
systems are:
 DB2 and Informix Dynamic Server – IBM
 Oracle and RDB – Oracle
 MySQL --Oracle
 SQL Server and Access – Microsoft
Structure of Relational Databases:
 A relational database consists of a collection of
relation(tables) each of which is assigned a
unique name.
 Consider a relation STUDENT with attributes

ROLL_NO, NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE and AGE

shown in Table.
STRUCTURE OF RELATIONAL DATABASES
 Attribute
 Tuple

 Relation Schema

 Relation Instance

 Domain

 Degree

 Cardinality

 NULL Values
Structure of Relational
Databases(cont….)
 Attribute (column Headers):

 Attributes are the properties that define a

relation. e.g.; ROLL_NO, NAME
 Tuple(Row):

 Each row in the relation is known as tuple.

 Relation Schema:
 A relation schema represents name of the

relation with its attributes.

 For Example:

STUDENT (ROLL_NO, NAME, ADDRESS, PHONE ,AGE)

 It is relation schema for STUDENT.

 If a schema has more than 1 relation, it is called

Relational Schema.
RELATION INSTANCE:
 The set of tuples of a relation at a particular instance of
time is called as relation instance.
 Table shows the relation instance of STUDENT at a
particular time.
 It can change whenever there is insertion, deletion or
updation in the database.
 Ex. t1 Relation instance. And After deletion t2 relation
instance
DOMAIN:
 For each attribute of a relation, there is a set of
permitted values, called the domain of that
attribute.
 It contains a set of atomic(indivisible) values

that an attribute can take. i.e All possible column

values.
 Ex1. In student table name attribute should be

set of character as a value.

 Ex2. in Employee table age of employee should

be in between 20-50.
 Degree: The number of attributes in the relation is known
as degree of the relation. The STUDENT relation defined
above has degree 5.
 Cardinality: The number of tuples in a relation is known as
cardinality. The STUDENT relation defined above has
cardinality 4.
 NULL Values: The value which is not known or unavailable
is called NULL value. It is represented by blank space. e.g.;
PHONE of STUDENT having ROLL_NO 4 is NULL.
 DATABASE SCHEMA
 A database schema is the skeleton structure that
represents the logical view of the entire database.
 It defines how the data is organized and how the

relations among them are associated.

 It formulates all the constraints that are to be

applied on the data.

 A database schema defines its entities and the

relationship among them.

 It contains a descriptive detail of the database,

which can be depicted by means of schema

diagrams.
 It’s the database designers who design the

schema to help programmers understand the

database and make it useful.
DATABASE SCHEMA(CONT….)
 A database schema can be divided broadly into
two categories −
 Physical Database Schema − This schema

pertains to the actual storage of data and its

form of storage like files, indices, etc. It defines
how the data will be stored in a secondary
storage.
 Logical Database Schema − This schema

defines all the logical constraints that need to be

applied on the data stored. It defines tables,
views, and integrity constraints.
DATABASE SCHEMA
 DATABASE INSTANCE

 Schema & Instance:

 It is important that we distinguish these two terms
individually.
 Database schema is the skeleton of database. It is
designed when the database doesn't exist at all. Once the
database is operational, it is very difficult to make any
changes to it.
 A database schema does not contain any data or
information.
 A database instance is a state of operational database
with data at any given time. It contains a snapshot of the
database.
 Database instances tend to change with time. A DBMS
ensures that its every instance (state) is in a valid state, by
diligently following all the validations, constraints, and
conditions that the database designers have imposed.
KEYS :
 KEYS in DBMS is an attribute or set of attributes
which helps you to identify a row(tuple) in a
relation(table).
 They allow you to find the relation between two

tables.
 Keys help you uniquely identify a row in a table

by a combination of one or more columns in that

table.
 Key is also helpful for finding unique record or

row from the table.

KEY EXAMPLE:
 Why we need a Key?
 Keys help you to identify any row of data in a table.
 In a real-world application, a table could contain
thousands of records. Moreover, the records could be
duplicated. Keys in RDBMS ensure that you can
uniquely identify a table record despite these
challenges.
 Allows you to establish a relationship between and
identify the relation between tables.
 Help you to enforce identity and integrity in the
relationship.
TYPES OF KEY:
PRIMARY KEY
 It is the first key which is used to identify one and
only one instance of an entity uniquely.
 An entity can contain multiple keys as we saw in

PERSON table.
 The key which is most suitable from those lists

become a primary key.

 In the EMPLOYEE table, ID can be primary key since

it is unique for each employee. In the EMPLOYEE

table, we can even select License_Number and
Passport_Number as primary key since they are also
unique.
 For each entity, selection of the primary key is based

on requirement and developers.

PRIMARY KEY EXAPLE:
2. CANDIDATE KEY
 A candidate key is an attribute or set of an
attribute which can uniquely identify a tuple.
 The remaining attributes except for primary key

are considered as a candidate key.

 The candidate keys are as strong as the primary

key.
 For example: In the EMPLOYEE table, id is best

suited for the primary key. Rest of the attributes

like SSN, Passport_Number, and
License_Number, etc. are considered as a
candidate key.
2. CANDIDATE KEY EXAPLE
 3. SUPER KEY
 A superkey is a group of single or multiple keys
which identifies rows in a table.
 A Super key may have additional attributes that are

not needed for unique identification.

 Super key is a superset of a candidate key.

 For example: In the EMPLOYEE table,

for(EMPLOEE_ID, EMPLOYEE_NAME) the name of two

employees can be the same, but their EMPLYEE_ID
can't be the same. Hence, this combination can also
be a key.
SUPER KEY EXAMPLE:
 FOREIGN KEY
 Foreign keys are the column of the table which is
used to point to the primary key of another table.
 In a company, every employee works in a specific

department, and employee and department are

two different entities. So we can't store the
information of the department in the employee
table. That's why we link these two tables through
the primary key of one table.
 We add the primary key of the DEPARTMENT table,

Department_Id as a new attribute in the EMPLOYEE

table.
 Now in the EMPLOYEE table, Department_Id is the

foreign key, and both the tables are related.

FOREIGN KEY EXAMPLE:
SCHEMA DIAGRAMS
 A database schema, along with primary key and
foreign key dependencies, can be depicted by
schema diagrams. Figure shows the schema
diagram for our university organization.
 Each relation appears as a box, with the relation

name at the top in blue, and the attributes listed

inside the box.
 Primary key attributes are shown underlined.

 Foreign key dependencies appear as arrows from

the foreign key attributes of the referencing

relation to the primary key of the referenced
relation.
RELATIONAL QUERY LANGUAGES
 Relational query languages use relational algebra
to break the user requests and instruct the DBMS
to execute the requests.
 It is the language by which user communicates

with the database.

 These relational query languages can be

 procedural or non-procedural.
PROCEDURAL QUERY LANGUAGE

 A procedural query language will have set of

queries instructing the DBMS to perform various
transactions in the sequence to meet the user
request.
 For example, get_CGPA procedure will have

various queries to get the marks of student in

each subject, calculate the total marks, and then
decide the CGPA based on his total marks.
 This procedural query language tells the database

what is required from the database and how to

get them from the database.
 Relational algebra is a procedural query

language.
NON-PROCEDURAL QUERY LANGUAGE
 Non-procedural queries will have single query on
one or more tables to get result from the
database.
 For example, get the name and address of the

student with particular ID will have single query

on STUDENT table.
 Relational Calculus is a non procedural language

which informs what to do with the tables, but

doesn’t inform how to accomplish this.
 These query languages basically will have

queries on tables in the database

 RELATIONAL ALGEBRA
 Relational algebra is a procedural query language, which
takes instances of relations as input and yields instances of
relations as output.
 Like Mathematical model it uses Operators and
Operands (tables) to perform queries.
 An operator can be either unary or binary. They accept
relations as their input and yield relations as their output.
 Relational algebra is performed recursively on a relation
and intermediate results are also considered relations.
 The fundamental operations of relational algebra are :
 Select
 Project
 Union
 Set difference
 Cartesian product
 Rename
1. SELECT OPERATION:
 The select operation selects tuples that satisfy a
given predicate.
 It is denoted by sigma (σ).

Notation: σ p(r)
 Where:
 σ is used for selection prediction

r is used for relation

p is used as a propositional logic formula which
may use connectors like: AND OR and NOT.
These relational can use as relational operators
like =, ≠, ≥, <, >, ≤.
 SELECT OPERATION EXAMPLE: (LOAN TABLE)

 Input: σ BRANCH_NAME="perryride" (LOAN)

 Selects tuples from LOAN where BRANCH_NAME is 'perryride'.
2. σsubject = "database" and price = "450"(Books)
 Output −
 Selects tuples from books where subject is

'database' and 'price' is 450.

3. σsubject = "database" and price = "450" or year >

"2010"(Books)
 Output −
 Selects tuples from books where subject is

'database' and 'price' is 450 or those books

published after 2010.
PROJECT OPERATION (∏)
 This operation shows the list of those attributes
that we wish to appear in the result. Rest of the
attributes are eliminated from the table.
 It is denoted by ∏.

 It projects column(s) that satisfy a given

predicate.
 Notation − ∏
A1, A2, An (r)

 Where A1, A2 , An are attribute names of relation r.

 Duplicate rows are automatically eliminated, as
relation is a set.
 For example 1. −

 ∏subject, author (Books)

 Selects and projects columns named as subject
and author from the relation Books.
PROJECT OPERATION (∏) EXAMPLE

 ∏ Customer_Name, Customer_City (CUSTOMER)

UNION OPERATION (∪)
 It performs binary union between two given
relations.
Notation − r U s
o Where, r and s are database relations.

 For a union operation to be valid, the following

conditions must hold −

 r, and s must have the same number of
attributes.
 Attribute domains must be compatible.
 Duplicate tuples are automatically eliminated.
Example:
∏ author (Books) ∪ ∏ author (Articles)

 Output − Projects the names of the authors who

have either written a book or an article or both.
 ∏ Student_Name (COURSE) ∪ ∏ Student_Name (STUDENT)

We can see there are no duplicate names present in the output

even though we had few common names in both the tables, also
in the COURSE table we had the duplicate name itself.
SET DIFFERENCE (-):
 Suppose there are two tuples R and S.
 The set intersection operation contains all tuples

that are in R but not in S.

 It is denoted by intersection minus (-).

 Notation: R - S

 Finds all the tuples that are present in r but not

in s.
 Example:

∏
author (Books) − ∏ author (Articles)

 Output − Provides the name of authors who

have written books but not articles.
write a query to select those student names that are
present in STUDENT table but not present in COURSE table.

 ∏ Student_Name (STUDENT) - ∏ Student_Name (COURSE)

CARTESIAN PRODUCT (Χ)
 The Cartesian product is used to combine each row
in one table with each row in the other table.
 It is also known as a cross product.

 Combines information of two different relations into

one.
 Notation − r Χ s

 Where r and s are relations and their output will be

defined as −
 σauthor = ‘ADAM'(Books Χ Articles)

 Output −
 Yields a relation, which shows all the books and

articles written by ADAM.

FIND THE CARTESIAN PRODUCT OF TABLE R AND S.

 Query: R X S
 RENAME OPERATION:
 The results of relational algebra are also relations
but without any name.
 The rename operation allows us to rename the

output relation. 'rename' operation is denoted with

small Greek letter rho ρ.
 It is denoted by rho (ρ).

 Example:

 ρ(STUDENT1, STUDENT)

 We can use the rename operator to rename

STUDENT relation to STUDENT1.
ADDITIONAL AND EXTENDED RELATIONAL ALGEBRA
OPERATIONS.
o Additional operations can be seen expressed using
fundamental operations.
 The basic relational-algebra operations have been

extended in several ways.

 A simple extension is to allow arithmetic

operations as part of projection.

 An important extension is to allow aggregate

operations such as computing the sum of the

elements of a set, or their average.
 Another important extension is the outer-

join operation, which allows relational-algebra

expressions to deal with null values, which model
missing information
ADDITIONAL RELATIONAL ALGEBRA OPERATIONS

 Set Intersection operation

 Assignment operation

 Natural Join operation

 Left Outer Join Operation
 Right Outer Join Operation
 Full Outer Join Operation
SET INTERSECTION(∩ ):
 Suppose there are two tuples R and S. The set intersection
operation contains all tuples that are in both R & S.
 It is denoted by intersection ∩.
 Notation: R ∩ S
 Finds all the tuples that are present in both r & s.
 set intersection is not a fundamental operation and does
not add any power to the relational algebra. It is simply
more convenient to write r ∩ s than to write R − (R − S).
i.e.
R ∩ S = R − (R − S).

 ∏ CUSTOMER_NAME (BORROW) ∩ ∏ CUSTOMER_NAME (DEP

OSITOR)
Output:
 Projects the common names of the Customer_Name from

Borrow and R_name from Depositor.

 ∏ Student_Name (COURSE) ∩ ∏ Student_Name (STUDENT)
ASSIGNMENT OPERATOR (←)
 Suppose you wish to assign result of an expression into
a relation R. For such work, we use assignment
operator (←).
 Notation of Assignment Operator
 R ← E.
 Where,
R is relation,
E is Expression whose result we wish to assign to
relation variable R.
 The result of the expression to the right hand side of ←
is assigned to relation variable on the left side of ← the
relation variable may be used in subsequent
expression.
 R1 ← πname(Customer)
 R2 ← πname(Employee)
 R = R1 – R2
NATURAL JOIN OPERATION (⋈)

 It is denoted by the join symbol ⋈.

 The natural join operation forms a Cartesian

product of its two arguments, performs

selection forcing equality on those attributes
that appear in both relation schema, and finally
removes duplicate attributes. Natural join can
be defined as:
 Notation of Natural Join Operation

P = R ⋈ S

 Where,

P is resultant relation after applying natural join

operation on R and S, R and S stands for
relation (name of the table).
 When we perform join operation Relation
 Result= Employee ⋈ Salary
 LEFT OUTER JOIN:
 LEFT (OUTER) JOIN: Returns all records from the left table,
and the matched records from the right table.
 It is denoted by ⟕.
 The Left-Outer Join is an outer join that returns all
the values of the left table, and the values of the
right table that has matching values in the left
table.
 If there is no matching result in the right table, it will
return null values in that field.
 The Left-Outer Join can be depicted using the below
diagram.
Input =A⟕B
 RIGHT (OUTER) JOIN:
 RIGHT (OUTER) JOIN: Returns all records from the
right table, and the matched records from the left
table.
 Right outer join contains the set of tuples of all

combinations in R and S that are equal on their

common attribute names.
 In right outer join, tuples in S have no matching

tuples in R.
 It is denoted by ⟖.
Input =A ⟖ B
 FULL (OUTER) JOIN:
 Returns all records when there is a match in either
left or right table.
 Full outer join is like a left or right join except that it

contains all rows from both tables.

 In full outer join, tuples in R that have no matching

tuples in S and tuples in S that have no matching

tuples in R in their common attribute name.
 It is denoted by ⟗.
Input =A ⟗ B
EXTENDED RELATIONAL ALGEBRA OPERATIONS.
The basic relational-algebra operations have
been extended in several ways.
 A simple extension is to allow arithmetic

operations as part of projection.

Generalized Projection
 Aggregate Functions
GENERALIZED PROJECTION
 The generalized-projection operation extends the projection
operation by allowing arithmetic functions to be used in the
projection list.
 The generalized projection operation has the form
∏ F1,F2,...,Fn (E)
 where
 E is any relational-algebra expression, and
 each of F1, F2, . . . , Fn is an arithmetic expression involving
constants and attributes in the schema of E an expression can
use arithmetic operations such as +,−, ∗, and ÷ on numeric
valued attributes, numeric constants, and on expressions that
generate a numeric result.
 Generalized projection also permits operations on other data
types, such as concatenation of strings.
 Ex. Given relation instructor(ID, name, dept_name, salary)
where salary is annual salary, get the same information but
with monthly salary
∏ID, name, dept_name, salary/12 (instructor)
 AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS
 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:

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
AGGREGATE OPERATION – EXAMPLE •