Chapter-6

Database Query Languages

Prepared by: Marta G. (MSc.)

Contents
• Relational Algebra
• Relational Calculus
• Basic SQL Queries
• Data Definition Language
• Data Manipulation Language
• Create user and grant permission
• Create triggers
Introduction
 Query is a question or requesting information.
 Query language is a language which is used to retrieve
information from a database.
 Query language is divided into two types :
• Procedural language
• Non-procedural language
Procedural language
 Information is retrieved from the database by specifying the
sequence of operations to be performed.
For Example: Relational algebra.
 Structure Query language (SQL) is based on relational algebra.
Introduction cont…
Non-procedural language
 Information is retrieved from the database without specifying the
sequence of operation to be performed. Users only specify what
information is to be retrieved.
◦ Example: Relational Calculus
 Relational calculus is a non-procedural query language in
which information is retrieved from the database without
specifying sequence of operation to be performed.
 It tells what to do but never explains how to do it.
 Relational calculus is of two types which are as follows:
• Tuple calculus
• Domain calculus
Relational Algebra
▪ It is a procedural query language.
 Relational algebra consists of a set of operations that take one or two
relations as an input and produces a new relation as output.
▪ It uses operators to perform queries which may be unary(it takes one relation as
an input) or binary (takes two relations).
▪ Select, project, rename comes under unary operation (operate on one table). Union,
intersection, difference, cartesian, join, division comes under binary operation
(operate on two tables).
▪ Relational algebra targets how to obtain the result.
▪ Fundamental operations
▪ Select: R1:= δ C(R2) Additional operations
▪ Set intersection (∩)
▪ Project: R1 := πL(R2)
▪ Assignment operation (←)
▪ Union: R3= R1 U R2 ▪ Natural join (⋈)
▪ Set difference: R3=R1-R2 ▪ Division operation (÷)
▪ Cartesian product: R3=R1* R2 ▪ Join operations
▪ Rename: R1 := ϱ R1(A1,. . . ,An)(R2) ▪ Inner join
▪ Outer join
Cont…
The SELECTION operation
▪ It is Unary relational operations
▪ Chooses the subset of tuples from the relation that satisfies
the given condition mentioned in the syntax of selection.
▪ The selection operation is also known as horizontal
partitioning since it partitions the table or relation
horizontally.
▪ Notation: σ condition (R)
▪ ‘σ (sigma)’ is used to denote select(choose) operator
▪ Condition like Id= 3 or combination of condition like age>20 AND
CGPA>3.5
▪ R represents relation name from which you want to choose or select
 Cont…
Employee
Id Name Experience Salary
05 Abebe 5 years 18,000
06 Kebede 3 years 16,000
07 Almaz 2 years 14,000
08 Hana 7 years 20,000

Eg1.: Select the employee tuples whose experience is greater than five or
salary is greater than 18,000
σ experience>5 OR salary>18,000 (Employee)

Id Name Experience Salary

05 Abebe 5 years 18,000
08 Hana 7 years 20,000
Cont…
The PROJECTION operation:
 It is also a unary operation which displays the specific column of
a table mentioned in the query.
Syntax: Π <attribute_list> (R)
Eg2: list employees name and salary from the above
employee table
Soln: Π Name, Salary (Employee)
Name Salary
Abebe 18,000
Kebede 16,000
Almaz 14,000
Hana 20,000
 Cont…
Eg3: select name and experience of employees whose salary is
greater than 17,000
Π Name, Experience (σ salary>17,000 (Employee))

Id Name Experience Salary

05 Abebe 5 years 18,000
08 Hana 7 years 20,000

Resulting table Name Experience

Abebe 5 years
Hana 7 years
Cont…

The RENAME operation (ρ)

▪ It is a unary relational operations that is used to rename relation
and/or column names
▪ Reasons to rename a relation can be many, like
▪ We may want to save the result of a relational algebra
expression as a relation so that we can use it later.
▪ We may want to join a relation with itself, in that case, it
becomes too confusing to specify which one of the tables we are
talking about, in that case, we rename one of the tables and
perform join operations on them.
Cont…
Syntax:
ρN(A1,A2,…,An) (R)
OR
ρN(R)
OR
ρ(A1,A2,…,An) (R)
Where R: Old relation name
N: New relation name
A1,A2,..,An: New attribute name
Cont…
Eg1: Rename relation Employee to New_employee
ρ New_employee(Employee)

Eg2: write a query to rename relation Employee as Emp and

attributes of Employee: Name and Salary as FirstName and
Payment where salaries are less than 18,000 .
ρ Emp(FirstName, Payment) πName, Salary(σ salary<18,000(Employee))
 Cont…
The Cartesian Product(X/*)
▪ It is a binary set operation means, at a time we can apply the operation on
two relations.
▪ It used to merge columns from two relations.
▪ Also called cross product or cross join
Eg1: Student X Details
Student
Id Name
01 kebede
02 Abebe Id Name Roll_no Dept Age
01 Kebede 11 SE 20
Details
02 Abebe 11 SE 20
Roll_no Dept Age 01 Kebede 12 CS 22
11 SE 20 02 Abebe 12 CS 22
12 CS 22
Cont…

 Generally, a cartesian product is never a meaningful operation when it

performs alone. However, it becomes meaningful when it is followed by
other operations.
 Eg: σ Roll_no=11(Student X Details)

Id Name Roll_no Dept Age

01 Kebede 11 SE 20

02 Abebe 11 SE 20
 Intersection operation
 It displays the common values in both relations. It is
denoted by ∩.
 Eg: Find a person who is student and lecturer

Extention_Stud Lecturer
Id Name Id Name
001 Abebe 003 Haleta
002 Kebede 004 Beza
003 Haleta 008 Samuel

Extention_Stud ∩ Lecturer
Id Name
003 Haleta
Cont…
Set Difference (−)
 The result of set difference operation is tuples, which are present
in one relation but are not in the second relation.
 Eg: ∏ author (Books) − ∏ author (Articles)
 Result: Provides the name of authors who have written books but
not articles.
The JOIN operation (⋈)
 It is a binary operation
 Join is a combination of a Cartesian product followed by a
selection process.
 A Join operation pairs two tuples from different relations, if and
only if a given join condition is satisfied.
 The tables in DBMS are associated using the primary key and
foreign keys.
 Syntax: R⋈join_condition S
 There are mainly two types of joins in DBMS:
1.Inner Joins: Theta, Natural, EQUI
2.Outer Join: Left, Right, Full
The JOIN operation (⋈) cont…

Inner join
 It is used to return rows from both tables which satisfy the
given condition. It is the most widely used join operation and can
be considered as a default join-type
 An Inner join or equijoin is a comparator-based join which uses
equality comparisons in the join-predicate.
 However, if you use other comparison operators like “>” it can’t
be called equijoin.
The JOIN operation (⋈) cont…

Theta Join
▪ It allows you to merge two tables based on the condition
represented by theta.
▪ Theta joins work for all comparison operators.
▪ It is denoted by symbol θ. The general case of JOIN operation is
called a Theta join.
Join_condition: Ai θ Bj Where Ai : Attributes of R1
Bj : Attributes of R2
Syntax: R1⋈ Ai θ Bj R2 θ : {=, <, <=,>,>=, ≠
 Cont…
Name A2
A3
Hana 35
R1 R2 25
Dawit 40
35
Solomon 45
20
Eg. Find R1 ⋈ A2<=A3 R2
First: Cartesian operation performed Secondly: THETA join performed
Name A2 A3
Hana 35 25
Hana 35 35 Name A2 A3
Hana 35 20 Hana 35 35
Dawit 40 25
Dawit 40 35
Dawit 40 20
Solomon 45 25
Solomon 45 35
Solomon 45 20
The JOIN operation (⋈) cont…

Equijoin
 When Theta join uses only equality comparison operator,
it is said to be equijoin.
 The JOIN operation (⋈) cont…
The NATURAL JOIN operation (⋈/*)
▪ It does not use any comparison operator.
▪ It does not concatenate the way a Cartesian product does.
▪ We can perform a Natural Join only if there is at least one common attribute that exists
between two relations.
▪ In addition, the attributes must have the same name and domain.

Courses ▪ Find Courses ⋈ HoD from the following tables

CourseCode Course Dept
SeEngi2021 DB SE
CoSc2045 IP CS

HoD Courses ⋈ HoD

Dept Dept_Head CourseCode Course Dept Dept_Head
SE Temesgen SeEngi2021 DB SE Temesgen
CS Seid CoSc2045 IP CS Seid
 Cont…
Eg: What if you are asked to make natural join between
employee and detail table
No. Salary
Employee Emp_Id Roll TeamNo. Detail 1 40,000
01 QA 1
2 80,000
02 Developer 2

We need to rename the column first

Employee_Detail Employee * ρ(TeamNo., Salary) (Detail)
Emp_Id Roll Team_no Salary

Result 01 QA 1 40,000
02 Developer 2 80,000
The JOIN operation (⋈) cont…

Outer Joins
▪ An inner join includes only those tuples with matching
attributes and the rest are discarded in the resulting
relation.
▪ Therefore, we need to use outer joins to include all the
tuples from the participating relations in the resulting
relation.
▪ There are three kinds of outer joins: left outer join, right
outer join, and full outer join.
 Cont…
Left Outer Join(R S)
▪ All the tuples from the Left relation, RL, are included in the resulting relation.
▪ If there are tuples in RL without any matching tuple in the Right relation RR,
then the RR-attributes of the resulting relation are made NULL.

RL A B RR A B
100 Database 100 Alex
101 Mechanics 102 Maya
102 Electronics 104 Mira

RL RR will be
A B C D
100 Database 100 Alex
101 Mechanics ----- ------
102 Electronics 102 Maya
Cont…
Right Outer Join: ( R S)
▪ All the tuples from the Right relation, RR, are included in the
resulting relation.
▪ If there are tuples in RR without any matching tuple in RL, then
the RL-attributes of resulting relation are made NULL.
▪ RL RR will be:
A B C D
100 Database 100 Alex
102 Electronics 102 Maya
----- ------ 104 Mira
Cont…
Full Outer Join: ( R S)
▪ All the tuples from both participating relations are included in
the resulting relation.
▪ If there are no matching tuples for both relations, their respective
unmatched attributes are made NULL.
▪ RL RR
A B C D

100 Database 100 Alex

101 Mechanics ------ ------

102 Electronics 102 Maya

----- ------ 104 Mira

What is DEVISION operation?
Non-Procedural language
 Information is retrieved from the database without
specifying the sequence of operation to be performed.
Users only specify what information is to be retrieved.
 Example: Relational Calculus
 Relational calculus is a non-procedural query language in
which information is retrieved from the database without
specifying sequence of operation to be performed.
 It tells what to do but never explains how to do it.
 Relational calculus is of two types which are as follows −
• Tuple calculus
• Domain calculus
Non-Procedural language
Tuple calculus
 It describes the desired information without giving a specific
procedure for obtaining that information.
 The tuple relational calculus is specified to select the tuples
in a relation. In TRC, filtering variable uses the tuples of a
relation. The result of the relation can have one or more
tuples.
 Variable range over tuple like sql
 Notation: {T | P (T)} or {T | Condition (T)}
Where
 T is the resulting tuples
 P(T) is the condition used to fetch T.
Cont…

 Example: To find the first and last names of all employees whose
salary is above $50,000, we can write the following tuple calculus
expression:
{t.FNAME, t.LNAME | EMPLOYEE(t) AND t.SALARY>50000}
 The condition EMPLOYEE(t) specifies that the range relation of
tuple variable t is EMPLOYEE.
 The first and last name of each EMPLOYEE tuple t that satisfies
the condition t.SALARY>50000 (SELECTION SALARY >50000)
will be retrieved.
 Cont…
▪ Example: { T.name | Author(T) AND T.article = 'database' }
Output: This query selects the tuples from the AUTHOR relation.
It returns a tuple with 'name' from Author who has written an
article on 'database’.
▪ TRC (tuple relation calculus) are free variables unless can be
quantified. So that, we can use Existential (∃) and Universal
Quantifiers (∀).
▪ The phrase "for every x'' (sometimes "for all x'') is called a
universal quantifier and is denoted by ∀x.
▪ The phrase "there exists an x such that'' is called an existential
quantifier and is denoted by ∃x.
To remember
 Cont…
Eg:
{ R| ∃T ∈ Authors(T.article='database' AND R.name=T.name)}

Output: This query will yield the same result as the previous
one.
 Cont…
Domain calculus
▪ Variable range over domain(particular element)
▪ Filtering variable uses the domain of attributes.
▪ Domain relational calculus uses the same operators as tuple
calculus. It uses logical connectives ∧ (and), ∨ (or) and ┓ (not).
▪ It uses Existential (∃) and Universal Quantifiers (∀) to bind the
variable.
Notation: { a1, a2, a3, ..., an | P (a1, a2, a3, ... ,an)}
Where: a1, a2 are attributes
P stands for formula built by inner attributes
Eg: {< article, page, subject > | ∈ javatpoint ∧ subject =
'database’}
Output: This query will yield the article, page, and subject
from the relational javatpoint, where the subject is a
database.
 SQL (Structured Query Language)
 It is a computer language for storing, manipulating and retrieving
data stored in relational database.
 SQL is an ANSI (American National Standards Institute) standard, but
there are many different versions of the SQL language.
 SQL is the standard language for Relation Database System.
 All relational database management systems like MySQL, MS
Access, Oracle, Sybase, Informix, postgres and SQL Server use SQL
as standard database language.
 Query: question we ask to our database/tables.
 SQL uses the terms table, row, and column for relation, tuple, and
attribute, respectively.
 Why SQL?
 Allows users to access data in relational database management systems.
 Allows users to describe the data.
 Allows users to define the data in database and manipulate that data.
 Allows to embed within other languages using SQL modules, libraries &
pre-compilers.
 Allows users to create and drop databases and tables.
 Allows users to create view, stored procedure, functions in a database.
 Allows users to set permissions on tables, procedures and views
 SQL is an ANSI standard computer language
 SQL can execute queries against a database
 SQL can retrieve data from a database
 SQL can insert new records in a database
 SQL can delete records from a database
 SQL can update records in a database
 SQL is easy to learn
SQL (Structured Query Language)

▪ Considered as one of the major reasons for the success of relational

databases in the commercial world.
▪ It is helpful to use DDL and a DML.
▪ In addition, it facilities for defining views on the databases.
Query: question we ask to our database/tables.
▪ Block basically contains a SELECT-FROM-WHERE expression.
▪ SQL uses the terms table, row, and column for relation, tuple, and
attribute, respectively.
DDL (Data Definition Language)
Basic DDL commands we usually use are: CREATE, DROP, ALTER, TRUNCATE
and RENAME
CREATE:
▪ Creating schema/database → create database/schema ⟨ database name ⟩;
▪ Creating table → create table ⟨ tablename(atr1 datatype, atr2 datatype, ....) ⟩; or create table ⟨
dbname⟩.⟨tablename(atr1 datatype, atr2 datatype,...)⟩;
DROP:
▪ drop schema/database ⟨ schema name⟩;
▪ drop table ⟨ table name⟩;
Truncate:
▪ truncate table ⟨ table name⟩;
 CONT…
ALTER:
▪ The definition of a base table can be changed by using the ALTER
TABLE command, which is a schema evolution command.
▪ The possible alter actions include adding or dropping a
column(attribute), changing a column definition, and adding or
dropping table constraints.
▪ alter table ⟨ table name⟩
rename column ⟨ columnone ⟩ to ⟨columntwo ⟩;
▪ alter table ⟨ table name⟩
add column ⟨ attribute name ⟩datatype;
▪ alter table ⟨ table name⟩
drop ⟨ attribute name ⟩;
▪ To add constraint → alter table ’tablename’ MODIFY ’attributename
datataype’ ’constraint name’;
 DML( Data Manipulation Language)
▪ SELECT, PROJECT, JOIN, INSERT, DELETE, UPDATE…
▪ SQL has one basic statement for retrieving information from a
database: the SELECT statement.
▪ SQL table may not be a set of tuples (when the table is created with
out primary key constraint ), because a set does not allow two
identical members.
▪ SQL relations are constrained to be sets when a key constraint is used
in the table creation or when the DISTINCT option is used with the
SELECT statement.
Cont…
SELECT-FROM-WHERE Structure of SQL Queries:
▪ The basic form of SELECT statement, sometimes called a
mapping or a select-from-where block, is formed of the three
clauses SELECT, FROM, and WHERE and has the form:
▪ SELECT ⟨ attribute list⟩ FROM ⟨ table list⟩ WHERE ⟨condition⟩;
▪ e.g; Retrieve the birthdate and address of the employee(s) whose
name is ”John B. Smith”
▪ Answer → SELECT BDATE, ADDRESS FROM EMPLOYEE
WHERE FNAME=’John’ AND MINIT=’B’ AND
LNAME=’Smith’;
▪ The above statement is similar to the following relational algebra
expression π BDATE, ADDRESS (σFNAME=’John’ AND
MINIT=’B’ AND LNAME=’Smith’ (EMPLOYEE))
Cont…
▪ Hence, a simple SQL query with a single relation name in the FROM-clause is
similar to a SELECT-PROJECT pair of relational algebra operations.
▪ The SELECT-clause of SQL specifies the projection attributes, and the WHERE-
clause specifies the selection condition.
▪ Enforcing referential integrity constraints and implementing ON UPDATE, AND
ON DELETE CASCADE.
▪ e.g; create table teacher(tid int primary key, tname varchar(25)); let’s use tid as
foreign key for student table
▪ create table student(sid int primary key, sname varchar(45) NOT NULL, SCGPA
double, tid int, foreign key(tid) references teacher(tid) ON UPDATE CASCADE);
▪ create table student(sid int primary key, sname varchar(45) NOT NULL, SCGPA
double, tid int, foreign key(tid) references teacher(tid) ON DELETE CASCADE);
Cont…
▪ Dealing with ambiguous attribute names
▪ In SQL the same name can be used for two or more attributes as long as the
attributes are in different relations.
▪ If this is the case, and a query refers to two or more attributes with the same name,
we must qualify the attribute name with the relation name, to prevent
ambiguity.
▪ This is done by prefixing the relation name to the attribute name and
separating the two by a period.
▪ e.g; Suppose that the Department Number and Last Name attributes of the
EMPLOYEE relation were called ’DNUMBER’ and ’NAME’, and the
Department Name attribute of DEPARTMENT was also called ’NAME’;
▪ Then, to prevent ambiguity, the above statement would be rephrased as:
Cont…
We must prefix the attributes NAME and DNUMBER in
the previous example to specify which ones we are
referring to, because the attribute NAME is used in both
relations:
Query: SELECT FNAME, EMPLOYEE.NAME, ADDRESS FROM
EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT WHERE
DEPARTMENT.NAME=’RESEARCH’ AND
DEPARTMENT.DNUMBER=EMPLOYEE.DNUMBER;
Reducing long query by using Alias
▪ Ambiguity also arises in the case of queries that refer to the same relation twice, as in the
following.
▪ E.g; For each employee, retrieve the employee’s first and last name and the first and last
name of his or her immediate supervisor
▪ Q: SELECT E.FNAME, E.LNAME, S.FNAME, S.LNAME FROM EMPLOYEE AS E,
SUPERVISOR AS S WHERE E.SUPERSSN=S.SSN;
▪ In this case, we are allowed to declare alternative relation names E and S, called aliases
or tuple variables, for the EMPLOYEE and SUPERVISOR relations.
▪ An alias can follow the keyword AS, as shown above or it can directly follow the relation
name for example, by writing EMPLOYEE E, SUPERVISOR S in the WHERE-clause as
the above query.
 Some Additional Query Examples
Retrieve distinct attributes from a given table:
▪ To select distinct names from student table
select distinct name from student;
▪ To retrieve the sum of salary of employees
select sum(salary) from employee;
▪ To display only a single set cgpa of student table
select all cgpa from student;
▪ To join student, teacher and manager tables without any condition
select * from student, manager, teacher or select * from student join
manager join teacher;
▪ Try left join, right join, full join.
▪ What is inner join? What is outer join? What is natural join?
 Substring Pattern Matching and Arithmetic Operators

 Use comparison conditions on only parts of a character string, using the LIKE
comparison operator → used for string pattern matching.
 Partial strings are specified using two reserved characters: modulo (%) replaces
an arbitrary number of zero or more characters, and the underscore (_ ) replaces
a single character.
 For example, consider the following query.
 E.g: select * from student where department LIKE ’%soft%’;
 The above query displays all students whose department likes soft.
 To display students with cgpa having 7 at third place in their grade → select *
from student where cgpa like ’ 7 ’;
 Cont…
✓ To display students with cgpa between 3.6 and 4.0;

✓ Using BETWEEN to show ranges → select * from student where

(cgpa between 3.6 and 4.0);

✓ Select maximum grade from student table → select max(cgpa) from

student;

✓ Select sum of student CGPA → select sum(cgpa) from student;

Nested Queries
 It is defining queries inside queries.
 E.g; select name, id from employee where salary=(select
MAX(salary) from employee);
Reading and practical assignment

How to Create user and grant permission using sql?

How to Create Trigger?
Thank you !!!
Class quiz
1. What is the difference between procedural and non- procedural languages?
2. List and describe unary relational algebras with there symbol
3. List types of relational calculus
4. Describe join relational algebra operation

Based on the above table

5. Select salary and name who has greater or equal to 5 years
Of experience using relational algebra
6. Rename ID and experience as idno and working_year respectively