Module-2

The Relational Data Model and Relational

Database Constraints
 Module 2: Relational Model
• Structure of Relational Databases - Integrity
Constraints, Synthesizing ER diagram to relational
schema
• Introduction to Relational Algebra - select, project,
cartesian product operations, join - Equi-join, natural
join. query examples,
• introduction to Structured Query Language (SQL),
Data Definition Language (DDL), Table definitions and
operations – CREATE, DROP, ALTER, INSERT, DELETE,
UPDATE.
 Relational Model Concepts
• Represents data as a collection of relations
• Informally, a relation looks like a table of values
• Table of values
– Row
• Represents a collection of related data values
• Fact that typically corresponds to a real-world entity or
relationship
– In the formal model, rows are called tuples
– Table name and column names
• To interpret the meaning of the values in each row-
attribute
Relational Model Concepts (cont’d.)
 Informal Definitions
• Key of a Relation:
– Each row has a value of a data item (or set of items) that
uniquely identifies that row in the table
• Called the key
– In the STUDENT table, SSN is the key

– Sometimes row-ids or sequential numbers are assigned

as keys to identify the rows in a table
• Called artificial key or surrogate key
 Formal Definitions - Schema
• The Schema (or description) of a Relation:
– Denoted by R(A1, A2, .....An)
– R is the name of the relation
– The attributes of the relation are A1, A2, ..., An
• Example:
CUSTOMER (Cust-id, Cust-name, Address, Phone#)
– CUSTOMER is the relation name
– Defined over the four attributes: Cust-id, Cust-name, Address,
Phone#
• Each attribute has a domain or a set of valid values.
– For example, the domain of Cust-id is 6 digit numbers.
– Indicated by dom(Cust_id)
 Formal Definitions - Tuple
• A tuple is an ordered set of values (enclosed in angled
brackets ‘< … >’)
• Each value is derived from an appropriate domain.

• A row in the CUSTOMER relation is a 4-tuple and would

consist of four values, for example:
– <632895, "John Smith", "101 Main St. Atlanta, GA 30332",
"(404) 894-2000">
– This is called a 4-tuple as it has 4 values
– A tuple (row) in the CUSTOMER relation.

• A relation is a set of such tuples (rows)

 Formal Definitions - Domain
• A domain is a set of atomic values.

• A domain has a logical definition:

– Example: “USA_phone_numbers” are the set of 10 digit
phone numbers valid in the U.S.

• 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.
– Dates have various formats such as year, month, date
formatted as yyyy-mm-dd, or as dd mm,yyyy etc.
 Formal Definitions - Domain

• The attribute name designates the role played by a domain in a

relation:
– Used to interpret the meaning of the data elements
corresponding to that attribute
– Example: The domain Date may be used to define two
attributes named “Invoice-date” and “Payment-date” with
different meanings

– The degree(or arity) of a relation is the number of attributes

n of its relation schema.
 Formal Definitions
• 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
 Formal Definitions - State
• The relation state is a subset of the Cartesian product of the
domains of its attributes
– each domain contains the set of all possible values the
attribute can take.

• Example: attribute Cust-name is defined over the domain of

character strings of maximum length 25
– dom(Cust-name) is varchar(25)

• The role these strings play in the CUSTOMER relation is

that of the name of a customer.
 Formal Definitions - Example
• Let R(A1, A2) be a relation schema:
– Let dom(A1) = {0,1}
– Let dom(A2) = {a,b,c}
• Then: dom(A1) X dom(A2) is all possible combinations:
{<0,a> , <0,b> , <0,c>, <1,a>, <1,b>, <1,c> }
• The relation state r(R)  dom(A1) X dom(A2)
• For example: r(R) could be {<0,a> , <0,b> , <1,c> }
– this is one possible state (or “population” or “extension”) r of
the relation R, defined over A1 and A2.

• Cardinality
– Total number of values in domain indicated by |D|
– Total no.of tuples in the cartesian product
 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
 Characteristics of Relations

1. Ordering of tuples in a relation

– Relation defined as a set of tuples
– tuples have no particular order
2. Ordering of values within a tuple and an alternative
definition of a relation
– n-tuple is an ordered list of n values.
– A tuple can also be considered as a set of (<attribute>,<value>)
pairs.
– Order of attributes and values is not that important
– As long as correspondence between attributes and
values maintained
Characteristics of Relations
 Characteristics of Relations

3. Values and NULLs in tuples

– Each value in a tuple is atomic
– Flat relational model
• Composite and multivalued attributes not allowed
 Characteristics of Relations
• NULL values
– Represent the values of attributes that may be
unknown or may not apply to a tuple

– Meanings for NULL values

• Value unknown
• Value exists but is not available
• Attribute does not apply to this tuple (also known as
value undefined)
 Relational Model Notation
• Relation schema R of degree n : R(A1,A2,…An)

• Uppercase letters Q,R,S denotes relation names

• Lowercase letters q,r,s denote relation states

• Letters t,u,v denote tuples.

• Attribute name can be represented with relation name as

R.A- eg: STUDENT.name
 Relational Model Notation
• An n-tuple t in a relation state r(R) is denoted by t=<v 1,v2,
…vn> where vi is the value corresponding to attribute A i

• Value in a tuple for attribute Ai can be indicated with t[Ai]

or t.Ai

• Eg: t=<‘Dick Davidson’,422-11-2320, NULL,’3452 Eglin

Road’,(817)749-1253,25,3.53> from STUDENT

• t[Name]=<‘Dick Davidson’>

• t[SSN,Gpa,Age]=< 422-11-2320,3.53,25>
Relational model constraints and
relational database schemas
Relational Constraints or Schema based Constraints or
Explicit Constraints

• Relational Integrity constraints in DBMS are

referred to conditions which must be present
for a valid relation.
1.Domain Constraints
2.Key Constraints and Constraints on NULL
Values
3.Entity Integrity Constraints
4.Referential Integrity Constraints
 Domain Constraints
• Specify that the value of each attribute A must be atomic
from the domain dom(A)

• Domain Typically include:

– Numeric data types for integers and real numbers
– Characters
– Booleans
– Fixed-length strings
– Variable-length strings
– Date, time, timestamp
– Money
– Other special data types
 Key Constraints and Constraints on
NULL Values
• No two tuples can have the same combination
of values for all their attributes.
• All tuples in a relation must be distinct
• Superkey
– No two distinct tuples in any state r of R can have the
same value for SK
• Key
– Is a Superkey of R with additional property that on
removing any attribute A from K leaves a set of
attributes K that is not a superkey of R any more
 Key Constraints and Constraints on
NULL Values (cont’d.)
• Key satisfies two properties:
– Two distinct tuples in any state of relation cannot
have identical values for (all) attributes in key
– Minimal superkey
• Cannot remove any attributes and still have uniqueness
constraint in above condition hold
 Key Constraints and Constraints on
NULL Values (cont’d.)
• Candidate key
– Relation schema may have more than one key
• Primary key of the relation
– Designated among candidate keys
– PK is Underlined in the schema.
• Other candidate keys are designated as
unique keys
Key Constraints and Constraints on
NULL Values (cont’d.)
 Integrity, Referential Integrity,
and Foreign Keys
• Entity integrity constraint
– States that no primary key value can be NULL
• Referential integrity constraint
– Specified between two relations
– Maintains consistency among tuples in two
relations
– It states that a tuple in one relation that refers to
another relation must refer to an existing tuple in
that relation .
 Integrity, Referential Integrity,
and Foreign Keys (cont’d.)
• A set of attributes FK in relation schema R1 is a foreign key of
R1 that references relation R2 if it satisfies the following rules:

1. The attributes in FK have the same domain(s) as the primary

key attributes PK of R2; the attributes FK are said to reference
or refer to the relation R2.
2. A value of FK in a tuple t1 of the current state r1(R1) either
occurs as a value of PK for some tuple t2 in the current state
r2(R2) or is NULL.
• In the former case, we have t1[FK] = t2[PK], and we say that
the tuple t1 references or refers to the tuple t2.
 Integrity, Referential Integrity,
and Foreign Keys (cont’d.)
• Diagrammatically display referential integrity
constraints
– Directed arc from each foreign key to the relation
it references
• All integrity constraints should be specified on
relational database schema
 Other Types of Constraints (cont’d.)
• Functional dependency constraint
– Establishes a functional relationship among two sets of
attributes X and Y
– Value of X determines a unique value of Y
• State constraints
– Define the constraints that a valid state of the database
must satisfy
• Transition constraints
– Define to deal with state changes in the database
Update Operations, Transactions, and
Dealing with Constraint Violations

• Operations of the relational model can be

categorized into retrievals and updates
• Basic operations that change the states of
relations in the database:
– Insert
– Delete
– Update (or Modify)
 The Insert Operation
• Provides a list of attribute values for a new
tuple t that is to be inserted into a relation R
• Can violate any of the four types of constraints
• If an insertion violates one or more constraints
– Default option is to reject the insertion
 Possible violations for each operation
• INSERT may violate any of the constraints:
– Domain constraint:
• if one of the attribute values provided for the new tuple is not of
the specified attribute domain
– Key constraint:
• if the value of a key attribute in the new tuple already exists in
another tuple in the relation
– Referential integrity:
• if a foreign key value in the new tuple references a primary key
value that does not exist in the referenced relation
– Entity integrity:
• if the primary key value is null in the new tuple
 The Delete Operation
• Can violate only referential integrity
– If tuple being deleted is referenced by foreign keys
from other tuples
– Restrict
• Reject the deletion
– Cascade
• Propagate the deletion by deleting tuples that reference the
tuple that is being deleted
– Set null or set default
• Modify the referencing attribute values that cause the
violation
 Possible violations for each operation
• DELETE may violate only referential integrity:
– If the primary key value of the tuple being deleted is referenced
from other tuples in the database
• Can be remedied by several actions: RESTRICT, CASCADE, SET NULL
(see Chapter 8 for more details)
– RESTRICT option: reject the deletion
– CASCADE option: propagate the new primary key value into the
foreign keys of the referencing tuples
– SET NULL option: set the foreign keys of the referencing tuples to
NULL
– One of the above options must be specified during database
design for each foreign key constraint
 The Update Operation
• Necessary to specify a condition on attributes
of relation
– Select the tuple (or tuples) to be modified
• If attribute not part of a primary key nor of a
foreign key
– Usually causes no problems
• Updating a primary/foreign key
– Similar issues as with Insert/Delete
 Possible violations for each operation
• UPDATE may violate domain constraint and NOT NULL
constraint on an attribute being modified
• Any of the other constraints may also be violated, depending
on the attribute being updated:
– Updating the primary key (PK):
• Similar to a DELETE followed by an INSERT
• Need to specify similar options to DELETE
– Updating a foreign key (FK):
• May violate referential integrity
– Updating an ordinary attribute (neither PK nor FK):
• Can only violate domain constraints
 In-Class Exercise
(Taken from Exercise 5.15)
Consider the following relations for a database that keeps track of student
enrollment in courses and the books adopted for each course:
STUDENT(SSN, Name, Major, Bdate)
COURSE(Course#, Cname, Dept)
ENROLL(SSN, Course#, Quarter, Grade)
BOOK_ADOPTION(Course#, Quarter, Book_ISBN)
TEXT(Book_ISBN, Book_Title, Publisher, Author)
Draw a relational schema diagram specifying the foreign keys for this
schema.