Relational Data Model

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B.

Navathe
Learning Outcome
 Identify the fundamental operators used to
retrieve information from a relational database:
 Restrict (select)
 Project
 Join (outer, inner)
 Cross Product
 Describe the purpose and input of each of the
operators.
 Use the operators to write the expressions
based on given relational tables.
 Show the output of the fundamental operators
based on a given database.

Slide 3- 2
Example of a Relation

Slide 3- 3
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
Slide 3- 4
Relational Algebra Overview

 Relational algebra is the basic set of

operations for the relational model
 These operations enable a user to specify
basic retrieval requests (or queries)
 The result of an operation is a new
relation, which may have been formed
from one or more input relations

Slide 3- 5
Relational Algebra Overview
 Relational Algebra consists of several groups of operations
 Unary Relational Operations
○ SELECT (symbol:  (sigma))
○ PROJECT (symbol: (pi))
○ RENAME (symbol:  (rho))
 Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
○ UNION (  ), INTERSECTION ( ), DIFFERENCE (or
MINUS, – )
○ CARTESIAN PRODUCT ( x )
 Binary Relational Operations
○ JOIN (several variations of JOIN exist)
○ DIVISION
 Additional Relational Operations
○ OUTER JOINS, OUTER UNION
○ AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS (These compute summary of
information: for example, SUM, COUNT, AVG, MIN, MAX)

Slide 3- 6
Unary Relational Operations: SELECT

 The SELECT operation (denoted by  (sigma)) is used to select

a subset of the tuples from a relation based on a selection
condition.
 The selection condition acts as a filter
 Keeps only those tuples that satisfy the qualifying
condition
 Tuples satisfying the condition are selected whereas the
other tuples are discarded (filtered out)
 Examples:
 Select the EMPLOYEE tuples whose department number is
4:
 (EMPLOYEE)
DNO = 4
 Select the employee tuples whose salary is greater than
$30,000:
 SALARY > 30,000 (EMPLOYEE)

Slide 3- 7
Unary Relational Operations: SELECT

In general, the select operation is denoted

by  <selection condition>(R) where
○ the symbol  (sigma) is used to denote the select
operator
○ the selection condition is a Boolean (conditional)
expression specified on the attributes of relation R
○ tuples that make the condition true are selected
 appear in the result of the operation
○ tuples that make the condition false are filtered
out
 discarded from the result of the operation

Slide 3- 8
Unary Relational Operations: SELECT
(contd.)
 SELECT Operation Properties
 The SELECT operation  <selection condition>(R) produces a relation
S that has the same schema (same attributes) as R
 SELECT  is commutative:
○ 
<condition1>( < condition2> (R)) =  <condition2> ( < condition1> (R))
 Because of commutativity property, a cascade (sequence) of
SELECT operations may be applied in any order:
○ 
<cond1>(<cond2> (<cond3> (R)) = <cond2> (<cond3> (<cond1> ( R)))
 A cascade of SELECT operations may be replaced by a
single selection with a conjunction of all the conditions:
○ <cond1>(< cond2> (<cond3>(R)) =  <cond1> AND < cond2> AND < cond3>(R)))
 The number of tuples in the result of a SELECT is less
than (or equal to) the number of tuples in the input relation
R

Slide 3- 9
The following query results refer to this
database state

Slide 3- 10
Unary Relational Operations: PROJECT

 PROJECT Operation is denoted by (pi)

 This operation keeps certain columns
(attributes) from a relation and discards the
other columns.
PROJECT creates a vertical partitioning
○ The list of specified columns (attributes) is kept in
each tuple
○ The other attributes in each tuple are discarded
 Example: To list each employee’s first and
last name and salary, the following is used:
LNAME, FNAME,SALARY(EMPLOYEE)

Slide 3- 11
Unary Relational Operations: PROJECT
(cont.)

 The general form of the project operation is:

<attribute list>(R)
 (pi) is the symbol used to represent the project
operation
<attribute list> is the desired list of attributes from
relation R.
 The project operation removes any duplicate
tuples
This is because the result of the project operation
must be a set of tuples
○ Mathematical sets do not allow duplicate elements.

Slide 3- 12
Unary Relational Operations: PROJECT
(contd.)
 PROJECT Operation Properties
The number of tuples in the result of
projection <list>(R) is always less or equal to
the number of tuples in R
○ If the list of attributes includes a key of R, then
the number of tuples in the result of
PROJECT is equal to the number of tuples in
R
PROJECT is not commutative
○ ( <list2> (R) ) =  <list1> (R) as long as
<list1>
<list2> contains the attributes in <list1>

Slide 3- 13
Examples of applying SELECT and
PROJECT operations

Slide 3- 14
Relational Algebra Expressions
 We may want to apply several relational
algebra operations one after the other
Either we can write the operations as a
single relational algebra expression by
nesting the operations, or
We can apply one operation at a time and
create intermediate result relations.
 In the latter case, we must give names
to the relations that hold the
intermediate results.

Slide 3- 15
Single expression versus sequence of
relational operations (Example)
 To retrieve the first name, last name, and salary of
all employees who work in department number 5,
we must apply a select and a project operation
 We can write a single relational algebra
expression as follows:
FNAME, LNAME, SALARY( DNO=5(EMPLOYEE))
 OR We can explicitly show the sequence of
operations, giving a name to each intermediate
relation:
DEP5_EMPS   DNO=5(EMPLOYEE)
RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, SALARY (DEP5_EMPS)

Slide 3- 16
Unary Relational Operations: RENAME

 The RENAME operator is denoted by 

(rho)
 In some cases, we may want to rename
the attributes of a relation or the relation
name or both
Useful when a query requires multiple
operations
Necessary in some cases (see JOIN
operation later)

Slide 3- 17
Unary Relational Operations: RENAME
(contd.)
 The general RENAME operation  can be
expressed by any of the following forms:
S (B1, B2, …, Bn )(R) changes both:
○ the relation name to S, and
○ the column (attribute) names to B1, B1, …..Bn
S(R) changes:
○ the relation name only to S
(B1, B2, …, Bn )(R) changes:
○ the column (attribute) names only to B1, B1,
…..Bn

Slide 3- 18
Unary Relational Operations: RENAME
(contd.)
 For convenience, we also use a shorthand
for renaming attributes in an intermediate
relation:
If we write:
• RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, SALARY (DEP5_EMPS)
• RESULT will have the same attribute names as
DEP5_EMPS (same attributes as EMPLOYEE)
• If we write:
• RESULT (F, M, L, S, B, A, SX, SAL, SU,
DNO)  RESULT (F.M.L.S.B,A,SX,SAL,SU, DNO)
(DEP5_EMPS)
• The 10 attributes of DEP5_EMPS are renamed
to F, M, L, S, B, A, SX, SAL, SU, DNO,
respectively

Slide 3- 19
Example of applying multiple operations and
RENAME

Slide 3- 20
Venn Diagram (UNION,
INTERSECTION, MINUS)

Slide 3- 21
Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory: UNION
 UNION Operation
Binary operation, denoted by 
The result of R  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
The two operand relations R and S must be
“type compatible” (or UNION compatible)
○ R and S must have same number of attributes
○ Each pair of corresponding attributes must be
type compatible (have same or compatible
domains)

Slide 3- 22
Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory: UNION
 Example:
 To retrieve the social security numbers of all
employees who either work in department 5 (RESULT1
below) or directly supervise an employee who works in
department 5 (RESULT2 below)
 We can use the UNION operation as follows:
DEP5_EMPS  DNO=5 (EMPLOYEE)
RESULT1   SSN(DEP5_EMPS)
RESULT2(SSN)  SUPERSSN(DEP5_EMPS)
RESULT  RESULT1  RESULT2
 The union operation produces the tuples that are in
either RESULT1 or RESULT2 or both

Slide 3- 23
Example of the result of a UNION operation

 UNION Example

Slide 3- 24
Relational Algebra Operations from
Set Theory
 Type Compatibility of operands is required for the
binary set operation UNION , (also for
INTERSECTION , and SET DIFFERENCE –, see
next slides)
 R1(A1, A2, ..., An) and R2(B1, B2, ..., Bn) are type
compatible if:
 they have the same number of attributes, and
 the domains of corresponding attributes are type
compatible (i.e. dom(Ai)=dom(Bi) for i=1, 2, ..., n).
 The resulting relation for R1R2 (also for R1R2, or
R1–R2, see next slides) has the same attribute names
as the first operand relation R1 (by convention)

Slide 3- 25
 Relational Algebra Operations from Set
Theory: INTERSECTION
 INTERSECTION is denoted by 
 The result of the operation R  S, is a
relation that includes all tuples that are in
both R and S
The attribute names in the result will be the
same as the attribute names in R
 The two operand relations R and S must
be “type compatible”

Slide 3- 26
 Relational Algebra Operations from Set
Theory: SET DIFFERENCE (cont.)
 SET DIFFERENCE (also called MINUS or
EXCEPT) is denoted by –
 The result of R – S, is a relation that includes
all tuples that are in R but not in S
The attribute names in the result will be the
same as the attribute names in R
 The two operand relations R and S must
be “type compatible”

Slide 3- 27
Example to illustrate the result of UNION,
INTERSECT, and DIFFERENCE

Slide 3- 28
Some properties of UNION, INTERSECT,
and DIFFERENCE
 Notice that both union and intersection are
commutative operations; that is
 R  S = S  R, and R  S = S  R
 Both union and intersection can be treated as n-
ary operations applicable to any number of
relations as both are associative operations; that is
 R  (S  T) = (R  S)  T
 (R  S)  T = R  (S  T)
 The minus operation is not commutative; that is, in
general
R – S ≠ S – R

Slide 3- 29
Slide 3- 30