Appendix C: Other Relational

Languages

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Appendix C: Other Relational Languages

„ Query-by-Example (QBE)
„ Access
„ Datalog

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Query-by-Example (QBE)

„ Basic Structure
„ Queries on One Relation
„ Queries on Several Relations
„ The Condition Box
„ The Result Relation
„ Ordering the Display of Tuples
„ Aggregate Operations
„ Modification of the Database

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.3 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 QBE — Basic Structure

„ A graphical query language which is based (roughly) on the domain

relational calculus
„ Two dimensional syntax – system creates templates of relations that
are requested by users
„ Queries are expressed “by example”

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 QBE Skeleton Tables for the Bank Example

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 QBE Skeleton Tables (Cont.)

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Queries on One Relation

„ Find all loan numbers at the Perryridge branch.

P._x

z _x is a variable (optional; can be omitted in above query)

z P. means print (display)
z duplicates are removed by default
z To retain duplicates use P.ALL

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Queries on One Relation (Cont.)

„ Display full details of all loans

z Method 1:

P._x P._y P._z

z Method 2: Shorthand notation

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Queries on One Relation (Cont.)

„ Find the loan number of all loans with a loan amount of more than $700

„ Find names of all branches that are not located in Brooklyn

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Queries on One Relation (Cont.)

„ Find the loan numbers of all loans made jointly to Smith and
Jones.

„ Find all customers who live in the same city as Jones.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Queries on Several Relations

„ Find the names of all customers who have a loan from the
Perryridge branch.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Queries on Several Relations (Cont.)

„ Find the names of all customers who have both an account and a loan
at the bank.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Negation in QBE

„ Find the names of all customers who have an account at the bank,
but do not have a loan from the bank.

¬ means “there does not exist”

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Negation in QBE (Cont.)

„ Find all customers who have at least two accounts.

¬ means “not equal to”

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Condition Box

„ Allows the expression of constraints on domain variables that are

either inconvenient or impossible to express within the skeleton
tables.
„ Complex conditions can be used in condition boxes
„ Example: Find the loan numbers of all loans made to Smith, to
Jones, or to both jointly

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Condition Box (Cont.)

„ QBE supports an interesting syntax for expressing alternative values.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Condition Box (Cont.)
„ Find all account numbers with a balance greater than $1,300 and less
than $1,500.

„ Find all account numbers with a balance greater than $1,300 and less
than $2,000 but not exactly $1,500.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Condition Box (Cont.)

„ Find all branches that have assets greater than those of at least one
branch located in Brooklyn.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Result Relation

„ Find the customer_name, account_number, and balance for all

customers who have an account at the Perryridge branch.
z We need to:
 Join depositor and account.
 Project customer_name, account_number and balance.
z To accomplish this we:
 Create a skeleton table, called result, with attributes
customer_name, account_number, and balance.
 Write the query.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Result Relation (Cont.)

„ The resulting query is:

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Ordering the Display of Tuples

„ AO = ascending order; DO = descending order.

„ Example: list in ascending alphabetical order all customers who have an
account at the bank.

„ When sorting on multiple attributes, the sorting order is specified by

including with each sort operator (AO or DO) an integer surrounded by
parentheses.
„ Example: List all account numbers at the Perryridge branch in ascending
alphabetic order with their respective account balances in descending
order.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Aggregate Operations

„ The aggregate operators are AVG, MAX, MIN, SUM, and CNT
„ The above operators must be postfixed with “ALL” (e.g., SUM.ALL.
or AVG.ALL._x) to ensure that duplicates are not eliminated.
„ Example: Find the total balance of all the accounts maintained at
the Perryridge branch.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Aggregate Operations (Cont.)

„ UNQ is used to specify that we want to eliminate duplicates.

„ Find the total number of customers having an account at the bank.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Query Examples

„ Find the average balance at each branch.

„ The “G” in “P.G” is analogous to SQL’s group by construct.

„ The “ALL” in the “P.AVG.ALL” entry in the balance column ensures that
all balances are considered.
„ To find the average account balance at only those branches where the
average account balance is more than $1,200, we simply add the
condition box:

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Query Example

„ Find all customers who have an account at all branches located in

Brooklyn.
z Approach: for each customer, find the number of branches in
Brooklyn at which they have accounts, and compare with total
number of branches in Brooklyn.
z QBE does not provide subquery functionality, so both above tasks
have to be combined in a single query.
 Can be done for this query, but there are queries that require
subqueries and cannot always be expressed in QBE.

„ In the query on the next page

z CNT.UNQ.ALL._w specifies the number of distinct branches in
Brooklyn. Note: The variable _w is not connected to other
variables in the query.
z CNT.UNQ.ALL._z specifies the number of distinct branches in
Brooklyn at which customer x has an account.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Query Example (Cont.)

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Modification of the Database – Deletion

„ Deletion of tuples from a relation is expressed by use of a D. command.

In the case where we delete information in only some of the columns,
null values, specified by –, are inserted.
„ Delete customer Smith

„ Delete the branch_city value of the branch whose name is “Perryridge”.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deletion Query Examples

„ Delete all loans with a loan amount greater than $1300 and less than
$1500.
z For consistency, we have to delete information from loan and
borrower tables

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Deletion Query Examples (Cont.)

„ Delete all accounts at branches located in Brooklyn.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Modification of the Database – Insertion

„ Insertion is done by placing the I. operator in the query

expression.
„ Insert the fact that account A-9732 at the Perryridge branch has
a balance of $700.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Modification of the Database – Insertion (Cont.)

„ Provide as a gift for all loan customers of the Perryridge branch, a new
$200 savings account for every loan account they have, with the loan
number serving as the account number for the new savings account.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.31 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Modification of the Database – Updates

„ Use the U. operator to change a value in a tuple without changing all

values in the tuple. QBE does not allow users to update the primary
key fields.
„ Update the asset value of the Perryridge branch to $10,000,000.

„ Increase all balances by 5 percent.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.32 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Microsoft Access QBE

„ Microsoft Access supports a variant of QBE called Graphical Query

By Example (GQBE).
„ GQBE differs from QBE in the following ways
z Attributes of relations are listed vertically, one below the other,
instead of horizontally.
z Instead of using variables, lines (links) between attributes are
used to specify that their values should be the same.
 Links are added automatically on the basis of attribute name,
and the user can then add or delete links.
 By default, a link specifies an inner join, but can be modified
to specify outer joins.
z Conditions, values to be printed, as well as group by attributes
are all specified together in a box called the design grid.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.33 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 An Example Query in Microsoft Access QBE

„ Example query: Find the customer_name, account_number and

balance for all accounts at the Perryridge branch.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.34 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 An Aggregation Query in Access QBE

„ Find the name, street and city of all customers who have more than one
account at the bank.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.35 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Aggregation in Access QBE

„ The row labeled Total specifies:

z which attributes are group by attributes.
z which attributes are to be aggregated upon (and the aggregate
function).
z For attributes that are neither group by nor aggregated, we can
still specify conditions by selecting where in the Total row and
listing the conditions below.
„ As in SQL, if group by is used, only group by attributes and aggregate
results can be output.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.36 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Datalog

„ Basic Structure
„ Syntax of Datalog Rules
„ Semantics of Nonrecursive Datalog
„ Safety
„ Relational Operations in Datalog
„ Recursion in Datalog
„ The Power of Recursion

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.37 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Basic Structure

„ Prolog-like logic-based language that allows recursive queries; based

on first-order logic.
„ A Datalog program consists of a set of rules that define views.
„ Example: define a view relation v1 containing account numbers and
balances for accounts at the Perryridge branch with a balance of over
$700.
v1 (A, B ) :– account (A, “Perryridge”, B ), B > 700.
„ Retrieve the balance of account number “A-217” in the view relation v1.
? v1 (“A-217”, B ).
„ To find account number and balance of all accounts in v1 that have a
balance greater than 800
? v1 (A,B ), B > 800

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.38 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example Queries

„ Each rule defines a set of tuples that a view relation must contain.

z E.g., v1 (A, B ) :– account (A, “ Perryridge”, B ), B > 700

is read as:
for all A, B
if (A, “Perryridge”, B ) ∈ account and B > 700
then (A, B ) ∈ v1
„ The set of tuples in a view relation is then defined as the union of all
the sets of tuples defined by the rules for the view relation.
„ Example:
interest_rate (A, 5) :– account (A, N, B ) , B < 10000
interest_rate (A, 6) :– account (A, N, B ), B >= 10000

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.39 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Negation in Datalog

„ Define a view relation c that contains the names of all customers who
have a deposit but no loan at the bank:
c(N) :– depositor (N, A), not is_borrower (N).
is_borrower (N) :–borrower (N,L).
„ NOTE: using not borrower (N, L) in the first rule results in a different
meaning, namely there is some loan L for which N is not a borrower.
z To prevent such confusion, we require all variables in negated
“predicate” to also be present in non-negated predicates.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Named Attribute Notation

„ Datalog rules use a positional notation that is convenient for

relations with a small number of attributes.
„ It is easy to extend Datalog to support named attributes.
z E.g., v1 can be defined using named attributes as
v1 (account_number A, balance B ) :–
account (account_number A, branch_name “ Perryridge”,
balance B ),
B > 700.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.41 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Formal Syntax and Semantics of Datalog

„ We formally define the syntax and semantics (meaning) of Datalog

programs, in the following steps:
1. We define the syntax of predicates, and then the syntax of rules.
2. We define the semantics of individual rules.
3. We define the semantics of non-recursive programs, based on a
layering of rules.
4. It is possible to write rules that can generate an infinite number of
tuples in the view relation. To prevent this, we define what rules
are “safe”. Non-recursive programs containing only safe rules
can only generate a finite number of answers.
5. It is possible to write recursive programs whose meaning is
unclear. We define what recursive programs are acceptable, and
define their meaning.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.42 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Syntax of Datalog Rules

„ A positive literal has the form

p (t1, t2 ..., tn )
z p is the name of a relation with n attributes
z each ti is either a constant or variable
„ A negative literal has the form
not p (t1, t2 ..., tn )
„ Comparison operations are treated as positive predicates
z E.g., X > Y is treated as a predicate >(X,Y )
z “>” is conceptually an (infinite) relation that contains all pairs of
values such that the first value is greater than the second value
„ Arithmetic operations are also treated as predicates
z E.g., A = B + C is treated as +(B, C, A), where the relation “+”
contains all triples such that the third value is the
sum of the first two

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Syntax of Datalog Rules (Cont.)

„ Rules are built out of literals and have the form:

p (t1, t2, ..., tn ) :– L1, L2, ..., Lm.

head body
z each Li is a literal
z head – the literal p (t1, t2, ..., tn )
z body – the rest of the literals
„ A fact is a rule with an empty body, written in the form:
p (v1, v2, ..., vn ).
z indicates tuple (v1, v2, ..., vn ) is in relation p
„ A Datalog program is a set of rules.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.44 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Semantics of a Rule

„ A ground instantiation of a rule (or simply instantiation) is the result

of replacing each variable in the rule by some constant.
z E.g., Rule defining v1
v1(A,B) :– account (A,“Perryridge”, B ), B > 700.
z An instantiation above rule:
v1 (“A-217”, 750) :–account ( “A-217”, “Perryridge”, 750),
750 > 700.
„ The body of rule instantiation R’ is satisfied in a set of facts (database
instance) l if
1. For each positive literal qi (vi,1, ..., vi,ni ) in the body of R’, l contains
the fact qi (vi,1, ..., vi,ni ).
2. For each negative literal not qj (vj,1, ..., vj,nj ) in the body of R’, l
does not contain the fact qj (vj,1, ..., vj,nj ).

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.45 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Semantics of a Rule (Cont.)

„ We define the set of facts that can be inferred from a given set of
facts l using rule R as:
infer(R, l) = { p (t1, ..., tn) | there is a ground instantiation R’ of R
where p (t1, ..., tn ) is the head of R’, and
the body of R’ is satisfied in l }
„ Given an set of rules ℜ = {R1, R2, ..., Rn}, we define
infer(ℜ, l) = infer (R1, l ) ∪ infer (R2, l ) ∪ ... ∪ infer (Rn, l )

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.46 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Layering of Rules

„ Define the interest on each account in Perryridge

interest(A, l) :– perryridge_account (A,B),
interest_rate(A,R), l = B * R/100.
perryridge_account(A,B) :– account (A, “Perryridge”, B).
interest_rate (A,5) :– account (N, A, B), B < 10000.
interest_rate (A,6) :– account (N, A, B), B >= 10000.
„ Layering of the view relations

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.47 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Layering Rules (Cont.)

Formally:
„ A relation is a layer 1 if all relations used in the bodies of rules defining
it are stored in the database.
„ A relation is a layer 2 if all relations used in the bodies of rules defining
it are either stored in the database, or are in layer 1.
„ A relation p is in layer i + 1 if
z it is not in layers 1, 2, ..., i
z all relations used in the bodies of rules defining a p are either
stored in the database, or are in layers 1, 2, ..., i

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.48 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Semantics of a Program

Let the layers in a given program be 1, 2, ..., n. Let ℜi denote the

set of all rules defining view relations in layer i.

„ Define I0 = set of facts stored in the database.

„ Recursively define li+1 = li ∪ infer (ℜi+1, li )
„ The set of facts in the view relations defined by the program
(also called the semantics of the program) is given by the set
of facts ln corresponding to the highest layer n.

Note: Can instead define semantics using view expansion like

in relational algebra, but above definition is better for handling
extensions such as recursion.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.49 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Safety

„ It is possible to write rules that generate an infinite number of answers.

gt(X, Y) :– X > Y
not_in_loan (B, L) :– not loan (B, L)
To avoid this possibility Datalog rules must satisfy the following
conditions.
z Every variable that appears in the head of the rule also appears in
a non-arithmetic positive literal in the body of the rule.
 This condition can be weakened in special cases based on the
semantics of arithmetic predicates, for example to permit the
rule
p (A ) :- q (B ), A = B + 1
z Every variable appearing in a negative literal in the body of the
rule also appears in some positive literal in the body of the rule.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.50 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relational Operations in Datalog

„ Project out attribute account_name from account.

query (A) :–account (A, N, B ).
„ Cartesian product of relations r1 and r2.
query (X1, X2, ..., Xn, Y1, Y1, Y2, ..., Ym ) :–
r1 (X1, X2, ..., Xn ), r2 (Y1, Y2, ..., Ym ).
„ Union of relations r1 and r2.
query (X1, X2, ..., Xn ) :–r1 (X1, X2, ..., Xn ),
query (X1, X2, ..., Xn ) :–r2 (X1, X2, ..., Xn ),
„ Set difference of r1 and r2.
query (X1, X2, ..., Xn ) :–r1(X1, X2, ..., Xn ),
not r2 (X1, X2, ..., Xn ),

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.51 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recursion in Datalog

„ Suppose we are given a relation

manager (X, Y )
containing pairs of names X, Y such that Y is a manager of X (or
equivalently, X is a direct employee of Y).
„ Each manager may have direct employees, as well as indirect
employees.
z Indirect employees of a manager, say Jones, are employees of
people who are direct employees of Jones, or recursively,
employees of people who are indirect employees of Jones.
„ Suppose we wish to find all (direct and indirect) employees of manager
Jones. We can write a recursive Datalog program.
empl_jones (X ) :- manager (X, Jones ).
empl_jones (X ) :- manager (X, Y ), empl_jones (Y ).

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.52 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Semantics of Recursion in Datalog

„ Assumption (for now): program contains no negative literals

„ The view relations of a recursive program containing a set of rules ℜ are
defined to contain exactly the set of facts l
computed by the iterative procedure Datalog-Fixpoint
procedure Datalog-Fixpoint
l = set of facts in the database
repeat
Old_l = l
l = l ∪ infer (ℜ, l )
until l = Old_l
„ At the end of the procedure, infer (ℜ, l ) ⊆ l
z Infer (ℜ, l ) = l if we consider the database to be a set of facts that
are part of the program
„ l is called a fixed point of the program.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.53 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Example of Datalog-FixPoint Iteration

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.54 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 A More General View

„ Create a view relation empl that contains every tuple (X, Y ) such
that X is directly or indirectly managed by Y.
empl (X, Y ) :– manager (X, Y ).
empl (X, Y ) :– manager (X, Z ), empl (Z, Y )
„ Find the direct and indirect employees of Jones.
? empl (X, “Jones”).
„ Can define the view empl in another way too:
empl (X, Y ) :– manager (X, Y ).
empl (X, Y ) :– empl (X, Z ), manager (Z, Y ).

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.55 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Power of Recursion

„ Recursive views make it possible to write queries, such as transitive

closure queries, that cannot be written without recursion or iteration.
z Intuition: Without recursion, a non-recursive non-iterative
program can perform only a fixed number of joins of manager
with itself.
 This can give only a fixed number of levels of managers.
 Given a program we can construct a database with a greater
number of levels of managers on which the program will not
work.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.56 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Recursion in SQL

„ Starting with SQL:1999, SQL permits recursive view definition

„ E.g., query to find all employee-manager pairs

with recursive empl (emp, mgr ) as (

select emp, mgr
from manager
union
select manager.emp, empl.mgr
from manager, empl
where manager.mgr = empl.emp )
select *
from empl

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.57 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Monotonicity

„ A view V is said to be monotonic if given any two sets of facts

I1 and I2 such that l1 ⊆ I2, then Ev (I1) ⊆ Ev (I2 ), where Ev is the
expression used to define V.
„ A set of rules R is said to be monotonic if
l1 ⊆ I2 implies infer (R, I1 ) ⊆ infer (R, I2 ),
„ Relational algebra views defined using only the operations: ∏, σ, ×, ∪,
|X|, ∩, and ρ (as well as operations like natural join defined in terms of
these operations) are monotonic.
„ Relational algebra views defined using set difference (–) may not be
monotonic.
„ Similarly, Datalog programs without negation are monotonic, but
Datalog programs with negation may not be monotonic.

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.58 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Non-Monotonicity

„ Procedure Datalog-Fixpoint is sound provided the rules in the program

are monotonic.
z Otherwise, it may make some inferences in an iteration that
cannot be made in a later iteration. E.g., given the rules
a :- not b.
b :- c.
c.
Then a can be inferred initially, before b is inferred, but not later.
„ We can extend the procedure to handle negation so long as the
program is “stratified”: intuitively, so long as negation is not mixed
with recursion

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.59 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Non-Monotonicity (Cont.)

„ There are useful queries that cannot be expressed by a stratified

program
z Example: given information about the number of each subpart in
each part, in a part-subpart hierarchy, find the total number of
subparts of each part.
z A program to compute the above query would have to mix
aggregation with recursion
z However, so long as the underlying data (part-subpart) has no
cycles, it is possible to write a program that mixes aggregation
with recursion, yet has a clear meaning
z There are ways to evaluate some such classes of non-stratified
programs

Database System Concepts - 6th Edition c.60 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
End of Appendix C

Database System Concepts, 6th Ed.

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