Relational Data Models

CSC311A - Database Systems

B. Tech. 2014

Course Leaders
Ami Rai E., Gp Capt N Rath VSM
[email protected], [email protected]

1
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Formal Definitions - Summary

• R(A1, A2, …, An) is the Schema of a Relation

• R is the Name of the relation
• A1, A2, …, An are the Attributes of the relation

2
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Formal Definitions – Summary [Contd…

• r(R): a specific state (or "value" or “population”)

of relation R – this is a set of tuples (rows)
• r(R) = {t1, t2, …, tn} where each ti is the ith
tuple
• ti = <v1, v2, …, vn> where each vj element-of
dom(Aj)
3
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Formal Definitions – Summary [Contd…

• Formally,
Cartesian Product
Given: R(A1, A2, .........., An)

r(R)  dom (A1) X dom (A2) X ....X dom(An)

4
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Formal Definitions – 1 Page Summary
• Formally,
– Given R(A1, A2, .........., An)
– r(R)  dom (A1) X dom (A2) X ....X dom(An)

• R(A1, A2, …, An) is the schema of the relation

• R is the name of the relation
• A1, A2, …, An are the attributes of the relation
• r(R): a specific state (or "value" or “population”) of relation R – this is a set of tuples
(rows)
– r(R) = {t1, t2, …, tn} where each ti is an n-tuple
– ti = <v1, v2, …, vn> where each vj element-of dom(Aj)
5
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Objectives

• At the end of this lecture, student will be able to

– explain the concept of relational data models

6
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Topics

• Relational Model Concepts

• Characteristics of relations

7
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Relational Data Model

• T 8
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Relational Model Concepts
• A relation typically contains a set of rows
– In the formal model, a table is called relation

• The data elements in each row represent certain facts that correspond to a real-
world entity or relationship
– In the formal model, a rows is called tuple
– Each row in the table represents a collection of related data values

• Each column has a column header that gives an indication of the meaning of the
data items in that column
– In the formal model, the column header is called an attribute name (or just attribute)
– All values in a column are of the same data type
9
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Relational Model Concepts contd.
• The table name and column names are used to help to interpret the meaning of the
values in each row

• For example, the table of Figure is called STUDENT because each row represents
facts about a particular student entity
 The column names — Name, Student_number, Class, and Major — specify how to
interpret the data values in each row, based on the column each value is in

10
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Degree and Cardinality of a Relation

• Degree (Meaning: No. of Attributes)

– The number of attributes in a relation determine the degree of the relation
– Example: A relation of degree seven, which stores information about university
students, would contain seven attributes describing each student as follows
STUDENT(Name, Ssn, Home_phone, Address, Office_phone, Age, Gpa)

• Cardinality (Meaning: No. of Rows)

– The number of tuples in a relation is called the cardinality of the relation

11
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Example of a Relation

Entity Set

12
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 DOMAIN
• A domain D is a set of atomic values
• By atomic, it means that
– each value in the domain is indivisible as far as the formal relational model is concerned

• Some examples of domains

 Usa_phone_numbers - The set of ten-digit phone numbers valid in the United States
 Names - The set of character strings that represent names of persons
 Grade_point_averages - Possible values of computed grade point averages; each must be
a real (floating-point) number between 0 and 4
 Employee_ages - Possible ages of employees in a company; each must be an integer
value between 15 and 80
 Academic_department_names - The set of academic department names in a university,
such as Computer Science, Economics, and Physics 13
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Domain contd.

• A domain also has a data-type or a format defined for it

– The USA_phone_numbers may have a format: (ddd)ddd-dddd where each d is a decimal
digit and the first three digits form a valid telephone area code
– The data type for Employee_ages is an integer number between 15 and 80

• A domain is thus given a name, data type, and format

• Additional information for interpreting the values of a domain can also be given
– a numeric domain such as Person_weights should have the units of measurement, such
as pounds or kilograms

14
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Domain contd.
• Consider the relation
STUDENT(Name, Ssn, Home_phone, Address, Office_phone, Age, Gpa)
• Using the data type of each attribute, the definition is sometimes written as
STUDENT(Name:string, Ssn:string, Home_phone: string, Address: string,
Office_phone:string, Age: integer, Gpa: real)
• we can specify the following previously defined domains for some of the attributes of
the STUDENT relation
dom(Name) = Names; dom(HomePhone) = USA_phone_numbers, dom(Office_phone) =
USA_phone_numbers, and dom(Gpa) = Grade_point_averages

• It is also possible to refer to attributes of a relation schema by their position within

the relation
– second attribute of the STUDENT relation is Ssn,whereas the fourth attribute is Address
15
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Schema of a Relation
• The Schema (or description) of a Relation, R
– Denoted by R(A1, A2, .....An)
– R is the name of the relation
– The attributes of the relation are A1, A2, .....An
– Each attribute Ai is the name of a role played by some domain D in the relation schema R
– D is called the domain of Ai and is denoted by dom(Ai )

• Example:
CUSTOMER (Cust-id, Cust-name, Address, Phone#)
– CUSTOMER is the relation name defined over the four attributes: Cust-id, Cust-name,
Address, Phone#
– the domain of Cust-id is 6 digit numbers
16
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Tuple
• A tuple is an ordered set of values (enclosed in angled brackets ‘< … >’)
• Each value is derived from an appropriate domain

• Each n-tupletis (Columns/Attributes in a Table) is an ordered list of n values t

=<v1,v2, ..., vn>
where each value vi, 1 ≤ i ≤ n, is an element of dom (Ai) or is a special NULL value

• For example:
– A row in the CUSTOMER relation is a 4-tupletis and would consist of four values
<632895, "John Smith", "101 Main St. Atlanta, GA 30332", "(404) 894-2000">

17
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Relation State
• A relation state r of the relation schema R(A1, A2, ..., An)
– also denoted by r(R)
– is a set of n-tuples r= {t1,t2,...,tm}

• The ith value in tuple t, which corresponds to the attribute Ai, is referred to as t[Ai] or
t.Ai (or t[i] if we use the positional notation)

• Of all the possible combinations, a relation state at a given time - the current
relation state - reflects only the valid tuples that represent a particular state of the
real world

• As the state of the real world changes, so does the relation state, by being
transformed into another relation state
• The schema R is relatively static and changes very infrequently 18
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Definition of Relation State using Set Theory
• A relation state r(R) is a mathematical relation of degree n on the domains dom(A1),
dom(A2), ..., dom(An), which is a subset of the Cartesian product (denoted by ×) of
the domains that define R
r(R) ⊆ (dom(A1)×dom(A2)×...×dom(An))
– The Cartesian product specifies all possible combinations of values from the underlying
domains

• The total number of values, or cardinality, in a domain D by |D| (assuming that all
domains are finite), the total number of tuples in the Cartesian product is |
dom(A1)|×|dom(A2)|×...×|dom(An)|
– This product of cardinalities of all domains represents the total number of possible
instances or tuples that can ever exist in any relation state r(R)

19
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Formal Definitions - Summary
• Formally,
– Given R(A1, A2, .........., An)
– r(R)  dom (A1) X dom (A2) X ....X dom(An)

• R(A1, A2, …, An) is the schema of the relation

• R is the name of the relation
• A1, A2, …, An are the attributes of the relation
• r(R): a specific state (or "value" or “population”) of relation R – this is a set of tuples
(rows)
– r(R) = {t1, t2, …, tn} where each ti is an n-tuple
– ti = <v1, v2, …, vn> where each vj element-of dom(Aj)
20
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Formal Definitions - Example

• L 21
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 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

22
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Ordering of Tuples in A Relation

• O 23
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Ordering of Tuples in A Relation contd.
The relation STUDENT with same state but with different order of tuples

24
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Ordering of Values within a Tuple

• A 25
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Ordering of Values within a Tuple contd.

• T 26
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 NULL Values in the Tuple
• NULL values are used to represent the values of attributes that may be unknown or
may not apply to a tuple

• For example, in Figure in slide No.20

– some STUDENT tuples have NULL for their office phones because they do not have an
office (that is, office phone does not apply to these students)
– another student has a NULL for home phone, because either he does not have a home
phone or he has one but we do not know it (value is unknown)
– we can add an attribute Visa_status to the STUDENT relation that applies only to tuples
representing foreign students

27
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 NULL Values in the Tuple contd.
• Several meanings for NULL values, such as
– value unknown
– value exists but is not available, or
– attribute does not apply to this tuple(also known as value undefined)

• A comparison of two NULL values leads to ambiguities

• Example
– if both Customer A and B have NULL addresses, it does not mean they have the same
address

• During database design, it is best to avoid NULL values as much as possible

28
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences
 Summary
• A relation schema is a list of attributes that describe the structure of a relation
• A relation, or relation state, is a set of tuples that conforms to the schema
• Several characteristics differentiate relations from ordinary tables or files
• The first is that a relation is not sensitive to the ordering of tuples
• The second involves the ordering of attributes in a relation schema and the
corresponding ordering of values within a tuple

29
Faculty of Engineering & Technology © Ramaiah University of Applied Sciences