1

02 Introduction to Relational
Model
CRI2E4 Basis Data
 2

Learning Outcomes
Students can explain and understand the Relational Model
 Outline
3

Structure of Relational Databases

Database Schema

Keys

Schema Diagram
 4

Structure of Relational
Databases
 Basic Concepts
5

• A relational database consists of a

collection of tables, each of which is
assigned a unique name.
• A row in a table represents a
relationship among a set of values.
• In mathematical terminology, a tuple is
simply a sequence (or list) of values.
• Thus, in the relational model the term
relation is used to refer to a table, while
the term tuple is used to refer to a row.
Similarly, the term attribute refers to a
column of a table.
 Relation Schema and Instances
6

• A1, A2, …, An are attributes

• R = (A1, A2, …, An ) is a relation schema
Example:
instructor = (ID, name, dept_name, salary)

• Relations are unordered. Order of tuples is irrelevant (tuples may be

stored in an arbitrary order)
Example: instructor relation with unordered tuples
 Attributes
7

• The set of allowed values for each attribute is called the domain of the
attribute
• Attribute values are (normally) required to be atomic; that is, indivisible
• The special value null is a member of every domain. Indicated that the value
is “unknown”
• The null value causes complications in the definition of many operations
Example of a Instructor Relation
8

attributes
(or columns)

tuples
(or rows)
 9

Database Schema
 Database Schema
10

• Database schema -- is the logical structure of the database.

• Database instance -- is a snapshot of the data in the database at a given
instant in time.
• Example:
schema: instructor (ID, name, dept_name, salary)
Instance:
 11

Keys
 Keys
12

• Let K  R
• K is a superkey of R if values for K are sufficient to identify a unique tuple of
each possible relation r(R)
• Superkey K is a candidate key if K is minimal
• One of the candidate keys is selected to be the primary key. Primary key
attributes are also underlined.
• The primary key should be chosen such that its attribute values are never, or
are very rarely, changed.
• Foreign key constraint: Value in one relation must appear in another
• Referencing relation
• Referenced relation
• Note that in a foreign-key constraint, the referenced attribute(s) must be the
primary key of the referenced relation.
 13

Schema Diagram
 Schema Diagram
14

• A database schema, along with primary key and foreign-key constraints, can
be depicted by schema diagrams.
 15

References

[1] Silberschatz, Korth, and Sudarshan. Database System Concepts – 7th

Edition. McGraw-Hill. 2019.
[2] Slides adapted from Database System Concepts Slide.
Source: https://db-book.com/slides-dir/index.html
Questions
16
 1

02 Introduction to SQL
CRI2E4 Basis Data
 2

Learning Outcomes
Students can explain and understand DDL, DML, Basic query
structure
 Outline
3

Overview of SQL Query Language

SQL Data Definition

Basic Structure of SQL Queries

Modification of the Database

 4

Overview of SQL Query

Language
 History
5

• IBM Sequel language developed as part of System R project at the IBM San
Jose Research Laboratory
• Renamed Structured Query Language (SQL)
• ANSI and ISO standard SQL:
• SQL-86
• SQL-89
• SQL-92
• SQL:1999 (language name became Y2K compliant!)
• SQL:2003
• Many products now support the SQL language.
• SQL has clearly established itself as the standard relational database
language.
 SQL Parts
6

The SQL language has several parts:

• Data-definition language (DDL). The SQL DDL provides commands for defining relation
schemas, deleting relations, and modifying relation schemas.
• Data-manipulation language (DML). The SQL DML provides the ability to query information
from the database and to insert tuples into, delete tuples from, and modify tuples in the
database.
• Integrity. The SQL DDL includes commands for specifying integrity constraints that the data
stored in the database must satisfy. Updates that violate integrity constraints are disallowed.
• View definition. The SQL DDL includes commands for defining views.
• Transaction control. SQL includes commands for specifying the beginning and end points of
transactions.
• Embedded SQL and dynamic SQL. Embedded and dynamic SQL define how SQL statements
can be embedded within general-purpose programming languages, such as C, C++, and Java.
• Authorization. The SQL DDL includes commands for specifying access rights to relations
and views.
 7

SQL Data Definition

 SQL Data Definition
8

• The set of relations in a database are specified using a data-definition

language (DDL).
• The SQL DDL allows specification of not only a set of relations, but also
information about each relation, including:
• The schema for each relation.
• The types of values associated with each attribute
• The Integrity constraints
• The set of indices to be maintained for each relation.
• Security and authorization information for each relation.
• The physical storage structure of each relation on disk.
 Basic Types
9

• char(n). Fixed length character string, with user-specified length n.

• varchar(n). Variable length character strings, with user-specified maximum
length n.
• int. Integer (a finite subset of the integers that is machine-dependent).
• smallint. Small integer (a machine-dependent subset of the integer domain
type).
• numeric(p,d). Fixed point number, with user-specified precision of p digits,
with d digits to the right of decimal point. (ex., numeric(3,1), allows 44.5 to
be stores exactly, but not 444.5 or 0.32)
• real, double precision. Floating point and double-precision floating point
numbers, with machine-dependent precision.
• float(n). Floating point number, with user-specified precision of at least n
digits.
 Basic Schema Definition
10

• An SQL relation is defined using the create table command.

create table r
(A1 D1, A2 D2, ..., An Dn,
(integrity-constraint1),
...,
(integrity-constraintk))
• r is the name of the relation
• each Ai is an attribute name in the schema of relation r
• Di is the data type of values in the domain of attribute Ai
• Example:
create table instructor (
ID char(5),
name varchar(20),
dept_name varchar(20),
salary numeric(8,2))
 Integrity Constraints in Create Table
11

• Types of integrity constraints

• primary key (A1, ..., An )
• foreign key (Am, ..., An ) references r
• not null
• SQL prevents any update to the database that violates an integrity constraint.
• Example:
create table instructor (
ID char(5),
name varchar(20) not null,
dept_name varchar(20),
salary numeric(8,2),
primary key (ID),
foreign key (dept_name) references department);

• Try to create 4 other tables in the university database

 Update to Tables
12

• Insert
• insert into instructor values ('10211', 'Smith', 'Biology', 66000);
• Delete : Remove all tuples from the relation
• delete from r
• Drop Table : Remove a relation from an SQL database
• drop table r
• Alter
• alter table r add A D
• where A is the name of the attribute to be added to relation r and D is the domain of
A.
• All exiting tuples in the relation are assigned null as the value for the new attribute.
• alter table r drop A
• where A is the name of an attribute of relation r
• Dropping of attributes not supported by many databases.
 13

Basic Structure of SQL

Queries
 Basic Query Structure
14

• A typical SQL query has the form:

select A1, A2, ..., An

from r1, r2, ..., rm
where P

• Ai represents an attribute
• Ri represents a relation
• P is a predicate.
• The result of an SQL query is a relation.
 The Select Cause
15

• The select clause lists the attributes desired in the result of a query
• corresponds to the projection operation of the relational algebra
• Example: find the names of all instructors:
select name
from instructor

• NOTE: SQL names are case insensitive (i.e., you may use upper- or lower-case letters.)
E.g., Name ≡ NAME ≡ name
 The Select Cause (cont.)
16

• SQL allows duplicates in relations as well as in query results.

• To force the elimination of duplicates, insert the keyword distinct after
select.
• Find the department names of all instructors, and remove duplicates
select distinct dept_name
from instructor
 The Select Cause (cont.)
17

• An asterisk in the select clause denotes “all attributes”

select *
from instructor
• An attribute can be a literal with no from clause
select '437'
• Results is a table with one column and a single row with value “437”
• Can give the column a name using:
select '437' as FOO
• An attribute can be a literal with from clause
select 'A'
from instructor
• Result is a table with one column and N rows (number of tuples in the instructors
table), each row with value “A”
 The Select Cause (cont.)
18

• The select clause can contain arithmetic expressions involving the operation, +, –, , and
/, and operating on constants or attributes of tuples.
• The query:
select ID, name, salary/12
from instructor
would return a relation that is the same as the instructor relation, except that the value
of the attribute salary is divided by 12.
• Can rename “salary/12” using the as clause:
select ID, name, salary/12 as monthly_salary
 The Where Clause
19

• The where clause specifies conditions that the result must satisfy
• Corresponds to the selection predicate of the relational algebra.
• To find all instructors in Comp. Sci. dept
select name
from instructor
where dept_name = 'Comp. Sci.'
• SQL allows the use of the logical connectives and, or, and not
• The operands of the logical connectives can be expressions involving the comparison
operators <, <=, >, >=, =, and <>.
• Comparisons can be applied to results of arithmetic expressions
• To find all instructors in Comp. Sci. dept with salary > 70000
select name
from instructor
where dept_name = 'Comp. Sci.' and salary > 70000
 The From Clause
20

• The from clause lists the relations involved in the query

• Corresponds to the Cartesian product operation of the relational algebra.
• Find the Cartesian product instructor X teaches
select 
from instructor, teaches
• generates every possible instructor – teaches pair, with all attributes from both
relations.
• For common attributes (e.g., ID), the attributes in the resulting table are renamed
using the relation name (e.g., instructor.ID)
• Cartesian product not very useful directly, but useful combined with where-clause
condition (selection operation in relational algebra).
 Examples
21

• Find the names of all instructors who have

taught some course and the course_id
• select name, course_id
from instructor , teaches
where instructor.ID = teaches.ID
 Examples
22

• Find the names of all instructors in the Art

department who have taught some course and
the course_id
• select name, course_id
from instructor , teaches
where instructor.ID = teaches.ID
and instructor. dept_name = ‘Comp. Sci.'
 Additional Basic Operations
23

• Rename operations
• String operations
• Ordering the Display of Tuples
• Where-Clause Predicates
 Rename Operations
24

• The SQL allows renaming relations and attributes using the as clause:
old-name as new-name

• Find the names of all instructors who have a higher salary than some instructor
in 'Comp. Sci'.
• select distinct T.name
from instructor as T, instructor as S
where T.salary > S.salary and S.dept_name = 'Comp. Sci.’

• Keyword as is optional and may be omitted

instructor as T ≡ instructor T
 String Operations
25

• SQL includes a string-matching operator for comparisons on character strings. The

operator like uses patterns that are described using two special characters:
• percent ( % ). The % character matches any substring.
• underscore ( _ ). The _ character matches any character.
• Find the names of all instructors whose name includes the substring “dar”.
select name
from instructor
where name like '%dar%'
• Match the string “100%”
like '100 \%' escape '\'
in that above we use backslash (\) as the escape character.
 String Operations (cont.)
26

• Patterns are case sensitive.

• Pattern matching examples:
• 'Intro%' matches any string beginning with “Intro”.
• '%Comp%' matches any string containing “Comp” as a substring.
• '_ _ _' matches any string of exactly three characters.
• '_ _ _ %' matches any string of at least three characters.

• SQL supports a variety of string operations such as

• concatenation (using “||”)
• converting from upper to lower case (and vice versa)
• finding string length, extracting substrings, etc.
 Ordering the Display of Tuple
27

• List in alphabetic order the names of all instructors

select distinct name
from instructor
order by name

• We may specify desc for descending order or asc for ascending order, for each
attribute; ascending order is the default.
• Example: order by name desc

• Can sort on multiple attributes

• Example: order by dept_name, name
 Where Clauses Predicates
28

• SQL includes a between comparison operator

• Example: Find the names of all instructors with salary between $90,000 and
$100,000 (that is,  $90,000 and  $100,000)
• select name
from instructor
where salary between 90000 and 100000

• Tuple comparison
• select name, course_id
from instructor, teaches
where (instructor.ID, dept_name) = (teaches.ID, 'Biology');
 29

Modification of the
Database
 Deletion
30

• Delete all instructors

delete from instructor

• Delete all instructors from the Finance department

delete from instructor
where dept_name= 'Finance’;

• Delete all tuples in the instructor relation for those instructors associated with a
department located in the Watson building.
delete from instructor
where dept name in (select dept name
from department
where building = 'Watson');
 Insertion
31

• Add a new tuple to course

insert into course
values ('CS-437', 'Database Systems', 'Comp. Sci.', 4);

• or equivalently
insert into course (course_id, title, dept_name, credits)
values ('CS-437', 'Database Systems', 'Comp. Sci.', 4);

• Add a new tuple to student with tot_creds set to null

insert into student
values ('3003', 'Green', 'Finance', null);
 Updates
32

• Give a 5% salary raise to all instructors

update instructor
set salary = salary * 1.05
• Give a 5% salary raise to those instructors who earn less than 70000
update instructor
set salary = salary * 1.05
where salary < 70000;
• Give a 5% salary raise to instructors whose salary is less than average
update instructor
set salary = salary * 1.05
where salary < (select avg (salary)
from instructor);
 33

References

[1] Silberschatz, Korth, and Sudarshan. Database System Concepts – 7th

Edition. McGraw-Hill. 2019.
[2] Slides adapted from Database System Concepts Slide.
Source: https://db-book.com/slides-dir/index.html
Questions
34