CHAPTER 8

The Relational Algebra

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Chapter Outline
 Relational Algebra
 Unary Relational Operations
 Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
 Binary Relational Operations
 Additional Relational Operations
 Examples of Queries in Relational Algebra
 Example Database Application (COMPANY)

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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
 This property makes the algebra “closed” (all
objects in relational algebra are relations)

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Relational Algebra Overview (continued)
 The algebra operations thus produce new
relations
 These can be further manipulated using
operations of the same algebra
 A sequence of relational algebra operations forms
a relational algebra expression
 The result of a relational algebra expression is also a
relation that represents the result of a database
query (or retrieval request)

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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)

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Database State for COMPANY
 All examples discussed below refer to the COMPANY database
shown here.

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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:

 DNO = 4 (EMPLOYEE)
 Select the employee tuples whose salary is greater than $30,000:
 SALARY > 30,000 (EMPLOYEE)

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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

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Unary Relational Operations: SELECT
(continued)
 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

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The following query results refer to this
database state

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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)

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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.
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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
  <list1> ( <list2> (R) ) =  <list1> (R) as long as <list2>
contains the attributes in <list1>

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Examples of applying SELECT and
PROJECT operations

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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.

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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)

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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)

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Unary Relational Operations: RENAME
(continued)
 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

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Unary Relational Operations: RENAME
(continued)
 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

Note: the  symbol is an assignment operator
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Example of applying multiple operations
and RENAME

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 Examples

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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)

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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

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Figure 8.3 Result of the UNION
operation RESULT ← RESULT1 ∪ RESULT2.

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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)

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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”

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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”

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Example to illustrate the result of UNION,
INTERSECT, and DIFFERENCE

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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

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Relational Algebra Operations from Set
Theory: CARTESIAN PRODUCT
 CARTESIAN (or CROSS) PRODUCT Operation
 This operation is used to combine tuples from two relations
in a combinatorial fashion.
 Denoted by R(A1, A2, . . ., An) x S(B1, B2, . . ., Bm)
 Result is a relation Q with degree n + m attributes:

Q(A1, A2, . . ., An, B1, B2, . . ., Bm), in that order.
 The resulting relation state has one tuple for each
combination of tuples—one from R and one from S.
 Hence, if R has nR tuples (denoted as |R| = nR ), and S has
nS tuples, then R x S will have n R * nS tuples.
 The two operands do NOT have to be "type compatible”

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Relational Algebra Operations from Set
Theory: CARTESIAN PRODUCT (cont.)
 Generally, CROSS PRODUCT is not a
meaningful operation
 Can become meaningful when followed by other
operations
 Example (not meaningful):

FEMALE_EMPS   SEX=’F’(EMPLOYEE)

EMPNAMES   FNAME, LNAME, SSN (FEMALE_EMPS)
 EMP_DEPENDENTS  EMPNAMES x DEPENDENT
 EMP_DEPENDENTS will contain every combination of
EMPNAMES and DEPENDENT
 whether or not they are actually related

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Relational Algebra Operations from Set
Theory: CARTESIAN PRODUCT (cont.)
 To keep only combinations where the
DEPENDENT is related to the EMPLOYEE, we
add a SELECT operation as follows
 Example (meaningful):

FEMALE_EMPS   SEX=’F’(EMPLOYEE)

EMPNAMES   FNAME, LNAME, SSN (FEMALE_EMPS)
 EMP_DEPENDENTS  EMPNAMES x DEPENDENT

ACTUAL_DEPS   SSN=ESSN(EMP_DEPENDENTS)

RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, DEPENDENT_NAME (ACTUAL_DEPS)
 RESULT will now contain the name of female employees
and their dependents

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Binary Relational Operations: JOIN
 JOIN Operation (denoted by )

The sequence of CARTESIAN PRODECT followed by
SELECT is used quite commonly to identify and select
related tuples from two relations

A special operation, called JOIN combines this sequence
into a single operation

This operation is very important for any relational database
with more than a single relation, because it allows us
combine related tuples from various relations

The general form of a join operation on two relations R(A1,
A2, . . ., An) and S(B1, B2, . . ., Bm) is:
R <join condition>S

where R and S can be any relations that result from general
relational algebra expressions.

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Binary Relational Operations: JOIN (cont.)
 Example: Suppose that we want to retrieve the name of the
manager of each department.

To get the manager’s name, we need to combine each
DEPARTMENT tuple with the EMPLOYEE tuple whose SSN
value matches the MGRSSN value in the department tuple.

We do this by using the join operation.


DEPT_MGR  DEPARTMENT MGRSSN=SSN EMPLOYEE
 MGRSSN=SSN is the join condition

Combines each department record with the employee who
manages the department

The join condition can also be specified as
DEPARTMENT.MGRSSN= EMPLOYEE.SSN

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Some properties of JOIN
 Consider the following JOIN operation:
 R(A1, A2, . . ., An) S(B1, B2, . . ., Bm)
R.Ai=S.Bj
 Result is a relation Q with degree n + m attributes:

Q(A1, A2, . . ., An, B1, B2, . . ., Bm), in that order.
 The resulting relation state has one tuple for each
combination of tuples—r from R and s from S, but only if
they satisfy the join condition r[Ai]=s[Bj]
 Hence, if R has nR tuples, and S has nS tuples, then the join
result will generally have less than nR * nS tuples.
 Only related tuples (based on the join condition) will appear
in the result

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Some properties of JOIN
 The general case of JOIN operation is called a
Theta-join: R S
theta
 The join condition is called theta
 Theta can be any general boolean expression on
the attributes of R and S; for example:
 R.Ai<S.Bj AND (R.Ak=S.Bl OR R.Ap<S.Bq)
 Most join conditions involve one or more equality
conditions “AND”ed together; for example:
 R.Ai=S.Bj AND R.Ak=S.Bl AND R.Ap=S.Bq

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Binary Relational Operations: EQUIJOIN
 EQUIJOIN Operation
 The most common use of join involves join
conditions with equality comparisons only
 Such a join, where the only comparison operator
used is =, is called an EQUIJOIN.
 In the result of an EQUIJOIN we always have one
or more pairs of attributes (whose names need not
be identical) that have identical values in every
tuple.
 The JOIN seen in the previous example was an
EQUIJOIN.

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Binary Relational Operations:
NATURAL JOIN Operation
 NATURAL JOIN Operation
 Another variation of JOIN called NATURAL JOIN — denoted
by * — was created to get rid of the second (superfluous)
attribute in an EQUIJOIN condition.

because one of each pair of attributes with identical values is
superfluous
 The standard definition of natural join requires that the two
join attributes, or each pair of corresponding join attributes,
have the same name in both relations
 If this is not the case, a renaming operation is applied first.

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Binary Relational Operations
NATURAL JOIN (continued)
 Example: To apply a natural join on the DNUMBER attributes of
DEPARTMENT and DEPT_LOCATIONS, it is sufficient to write:
 DEPT_LOCS  DEPARTMENT * DEPT_LOCATIONS
 Only attribute with the same name is DNUMBER
 An implicit join condition is created based on this attribute:
DEPARTMENT.DNUMBER=DEPT_LOCATIONS.DNUMBER

 Another example: Q  R(A,B,C,D) * S(C,D,E)

 The implicit join condition includes each pair of attributes with the

same name, “AND”ed together:


R.C=S.C AND R.D.S.D
 Result keeps only one attribute of each such pair:

Q(A,B,C,D,E)

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Complete Set of Relational Operations
 The set of operations including SELECT ,
PROJECT  , UNION , DIFFERENCE  ,
RENAME , and CARTESIAN PRODUCT X is
called a complete set because any other
relational algebra expression can be expressed
by a combination of these five operations.
 For example:
 R  S = (R  S ) – ((R  S)  (S  R))
R <join condition>S =  <join condition> (R X S)


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Binary Relational Operations: DIVISION
 DIVISION Operation
 The division operation is applied to two relations
 R(Z)  S(X), where X subset Z. Let Y = Z - X (and
hence Z = X  Y); that is, let Y be the set of attributes of R
that are not attributes of S.

 The result of DIVISION is a relation T(Y) that includes a

tuple t if tuples tR appear in R with tR [Y] = t, and with

tR [X] = ts for every tuple ts in S.

 For a tuple t to appear in the result T of the DIVISION, the

values in t must appear in R in combination with every tuple
in S.

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Example of DIVISION

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Table 8.1 Operations of Relational
Algebra

continued on next slide

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Table 8.1 Operations of Relational
Algebra (continued)

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Examples of Queries in Relational Algebra
: Procedural Form
 Q1: Retrieve the name and address of all employees who work for the
‘Research’ department.
RESEARCH_DEPT   DNAME=’Research’ (DEPARTMENT)
RESEARCH_EMPS  (RESEARCH_DEPT DNUMBER= DNOEMPLOYEE EMPLOYEE)
RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, ADDRESS (RESEARCH_EMPS)

 Q6: Retrieve the names of employees who have no dependents.

ALL_EMPS   SSN(EMPLOYEE)
EMPS_WITH_DEPS(SSN)   ESSN(DEPENDENT)
EMPS_WITHOUT_DEPS  (ALL_EMPS - EMPS_WITH_DEPS)
RESULT   LNAME, FNAME (EMPS_WITHOUT_DEPS * EMPLOYEE)

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Examples of Queries in Relational Algebra
– Single expressions

As a single expression, these queries become:

 Q1: Retrieve the name and address of all employees who work for the
‘Research’ department.
 Fname, Lname, Address (σ Dname= ‘Research’
(DEPARTMENT Dnumber=Dno(EMPLOYEE))
 Q6: Retrieve the names of employees who have no dependents.
 Lname, Fname(( Ssn (EMPLOYEE) − ρ Ssn ( Essn
(DEPENDENT))) ∗ EMPLOYEE)

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