CS F212: Database Systems

Today’s Class
Relational Model
 Basic Concepts
 Keys

CS F212 Database Systems 1

 Relational Model Concepts
• Relational Model of data is based on the concept of
RELATION
• A Relation is a Mathematical concept based on idea of
SETS
• The strength of the relational approach to data
management comes from the formal foundation provided
by the theory of relations

CS F212 Database Systems 2

 Relational Model Concepts
The model was first proposed by Dr. E.F. Codd of IBM in
1970 in the following paper:
"A Relational Model for Large Shared Data Banks," Comm
unications of the ACM, June 1970.
The above paper caused a major revolution in the field of Database
management and earned Ted Codd the coveted ACM Turing Award
in 1981

CS F212 Database Systems 3

Some Terms
• Table  Relation
• Row or Record  Tuple
• Column or Field  Attribute
• No. of Rows  Cardinality
• No. of Columns  Degree or Arity
• Unique Identifier  Primary key
• Pool of Legal Values  Domain

CS F212 Database Systems 4

Example Relation

Cardinality = 5
Degree = 7
Primary Key is SSN

CS F212 Database Systems 5

Relational Database: Definitions
• Relational database: a set of relations
• Relation: made up of 2 parts:
• Instance : a table, with rows and columns.
#Rows = cardinality, #fields = degree / arity.
• Schema : specifies name of relation, plus name and type of each
column.
• e.g. Students(sid: string, name: string, login: string,age: integer, gpa: real).
• Can think of a relation as a set of rows or tuples (i.e., all rows
are distinct).
 An Example Relation
Relation Name/Table Name Attributes/Columns (collectively as a schema)

STUDENT
Name Student-id Age CGPA
Chan Kin Ho 99223367 23 8.19

Tuples/Rows
Lam Wai Kin 96882145 17 10.00
Man Ko Yee 96452165 22 8.75
Lee Chin Cheung 96154292 16 10.00
Alvin Lam 96520934 15 9.65

 Cardinality = 5, degree = 4, all rows distinct

Another Relation Example

enrollment (studentName, rollNumber, courseNo, sectionNo)

enrollment
Domains & Data Types
• Significance of domains
• Domain-constrained comparisons
Select …..
From P, SP
Where P.P# = SP.P#

Select …..
From P, SP
Where P.weight = SP.qty
Both are valid queries in SQL, but second one makes no sense!!
• Domains implemented as Data-Types?

CS F212 Database Systems 9

Relational Systems
• In relational systems, the DB is perceived by the user
as relations & nothing else
• Relations are only logical structures
• At the physical level, the system is free to store the
data in any way it likes – using sequential files,
indexing, hashing…
• Provided it can map stored representations to
relations

CS F212 Database Systems 10

 Relational Systems
• Consider the relations:
Dept(dept#, dname, budget)
D1 MKTNG 10M
D2 DEV 12M
D3 RES 5M

Emp(emp#, ename, dept#, salary)

E1 LOPEZ D1 40K
There is a connection between tuples E1 & D1. The connection is represented,
not by a pointer, but by the occurrence of value D1 in E1.
In non-relational systems, such information is typically represented by some
kind of pointer that is visible to the user.

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 Relational Systems
• In relational systems, there are no pointers at the logical
level
• Pointers will be there at the physical level
• Physical storage details are concealed from the user in
relational systems

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 Properties of Relations
• There are no duplicate tuples
• Body of a relation is a mathematical set
• Tuples are unordered, top to bottom
• Body of a relation is a mathematical set
• No such thing as fifth tuple, next tuple ..
• No concept of positional addressing
• Attributes are unordered, left to right
• Heading of a relation is a mathematical set
• No concept of positional addressing
• All attribute values are atomic
• Normalized (1st Normal Form)

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Types of Relations
• Base Relations
• The original (given) relations
• Derived Relations
• Relations obtained from base relations
• Views
• “Virtual” derived relation
• Only definition is stored in the catalog
• Definition executed at run-time
• Snapshots
• “Real” derived relation
• Query Result
• Unnamed derived relation

CS F212 Database Systems 14

 Some Formal Definitions
A relation is denoted by: R(A1, A2, ..., An)
 STUDENT(Name, Student-id, Age, CGA)
Degree of a relation: the number of attributes n in the relation.
Tuple t of R(A1, A2, ..., An): An ordered set of values <v1,v2,...,vn>
where each vi is an element of dom(Ai).
Relation instance r(R): A set of tuples in R
r(R) = {t1, t2, ..., tm}, or alternatively

r(R)  dom(A1)  dom(A2)  ...  dom(An)

 Relation and Cartesian Product
A relation is any subset of the Cartesian product of domains of
values
Example: Let Dom(Name) = { Lee, Cheung }
Dom(Grade) = { A, B, C }
Then the Cartesian product of the domains is
Dom(Name)  Dom(Grade) = { Lee, A, Lee, B , Lee, C,
Cheung, A, Cheung, B, Cheung C }
A relation StudentGrade (Name, Grade) can be defined as any
subset of the Cartesian product Dom(Name)  Dom(Grade)
r(StudentGrade) = { Lee, A, Cheung C }  Dom(Name)  Dom(Grade)
 Characteristics of Relations
Tuples in a relation are not considered to be ordered,
even though they appear to be in a tabular form.
(Recall that a relation is a set of tuples.)
Ordering of attributes in a relation schema R are
significant.
Values in a tuple: All values are considered atomic.
(Recall that a domain is a set of atomic values.) A
special null value is used to represent values that are
unknown or inapplicable to certain tuples or does not
exist.
 Keys
• Let K  R (I.e., K is a set of attributes which is a subset of the
schema of R)
• K is a superkey of R if K can identify a unique tuple in a given
relation r(R)
Customer(CusNo, Name, Address, …)
where customers have unique customer numbers and
unique names.
Possible superkeys: CusNo
{CusNo, Name}
{CusNo, Name, Address}
plus many others
K is a candidate key if K is minimal
There are two candidate keys: CusNo and Name
Every relation is guarantee to (must) have at least one key. Why?
Key(Candidate key)
• A key can not be determined from any particular instance
data
• it is an intrinsic property of the schema
• it can only be determined from the meaning of attributes
• A relation can have more than one key.
• Superkey: A set of attributes that contains any key as a
subset.
• A key can also be defined as a minimal superkey
• Primary Key: One of the candidate keys chosen for indexing
purposes ( More details later…)