Chapter 4

Relational Algebra and

Relational Calculus
Transparencies
Relational Algebra

Relational algebra and relational calculus are

formal languages associated with the relational
model.
The Relational Algebra is used to define the ways
in which relations (tables) can be operated to
manipulate their data.
It is used as the basis of SQL for relational
databases, and illustrates the basic operations
required of any DML.

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Relational Algebra
Relational algebra operations work on one or
more relations to define another relation
without changing the original relations.

Both operands and results are relations, so

output from one operation can become input to
another operation.

Allows expressions to be nested, just as in

arithmetic. This property is called closure.

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Relational algebra VS Relational Calculus
Informally, relational algebra is a (high-level)
procedural language and relational calculus a
non-procedural language. – Difference ??
However, formally both are equivalent to one
another.
A language that produces a relation that can be
derived using relational calculus is relationally
complete.

What & How 4

Relational Algebra
This Algebra is composed of Unary operations
(involving a single table) and Binary operations
(involving multiple tables).
Five basic operations in relational algebra:
Selection, Projection, Cartesian product,
Union, and Set Difference.
These perform most of the data retrieval
operations needed.
Also have Join, Intersection, and Division
operations, which can be expressed in terms of
5 basic operations.
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Relational Algebra Operations

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Relational Algebra Operations

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Selection (or Restriction)
σ predicate (R)
– Works on a single relation R and defines a relation that
contains only those tuples (rows) of R that satisfy the
specified condition (predicate).
– Unary Operation
σ < condition > < tablename >
Conditions in Selection:
Simple Condition: (attribute)(comparison)(attribute)
(attribute)(comparison)(constant)
Comparison: =,≠,≤,≥,<,>
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 Select Operator Example
Person бAge≥34(Person)
Name Age Weight Name Age Weight

Harry 34 80 Harry 34 80
Helena 54 54
Sally 28 64
Peter 34 80
George 29 70

Helena 54 54

Peter 34 80 бAge=Weight(Person)
Name Age Weight
Helena 54 54
Example - Selection (or Restriction)
List all staff with a salary greater than £10,000.

σ salary > 10000 (Staff)

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Projection
Π col1, . . . , coln(R)
– Works on a single relation R and defines a
relation that contains a vertical subset of R,
extracting the values of specified attributes and
eliminating duplicates.
π < column list > < tablename >
e.g., name of employees:
∏ name(Employee)
e.g., name of employees earning more than 80,000:
∏ name(бSalary>80,000(Employee)) 11
 Project Operator Example
Employee
Name Age Salary ∏ name(Employee)
Harry 34 80,000 Name
Sally 28 90,000 Harry
George 29 70,000 Sally

Helena 54 54,280 George

Helena
Peter 34 40,000
Peter
 Project Operator Example
Employee бSalary>80,000(Employee)
Name Age Salary Name Age Salary

Harry 34 80,000 Sally 28 90,000

Sally 28 90,000
George 29 70,000 ∏ name(бSalary>80,000(Employee))
Helena 54 54,280
Name
Peter 34 40,000
Sally
Example - Projection
Produce a list of salaries for all staff, showing only
staffNo, fName, lName, and salary details.

Π staffNo, fName, lName, salary(Staff)

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Union, Intersection, Set-Difference
All of these operations take two input relations, which
must be union-compatible:
– Same number of fields.
– `Corresponding’ fields have the same type.

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Union
R∪ S
– Union of two relations R and S defines a relation
that contains all the tuples of R, or S, or both R
and S, duplicate tuples being eliminated.
– R and S must be union-compatible.

If R and S have I and J tuples, respectively, union

is obtained by concatenating them into one relation
with a maximum of (I + J) tuples.

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 Union Operator Example
Student Professor
FN LN
FN LN John Smith
Ricardo Brown
Susan Yao
Susan Yao
Ramesh Shah
Francis Johnson
Barbara Jones Ramesh Shah
Amy Ford Student U Professor
Jimmy Wang
FN LN
Susan Yao
Ramesh Shah
Barbara Jones
Amy Ford
Jimmy Wang
John Smith
Ricardo Brown
Francis Johnson
Example - Union
List all cities where there is either a branch office
or a property for rent.

Π city(Branch) ∪ Π city(PropertyForRent)

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Set Difference
R–S
– Defines a relation consisting of the tuples that
are in relation R, but not in S.
– R and S must be union-compatible.

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Set Difference Operator Example
Professor
Student
FN LN FN LN
Susan Yao John Smith

Ramesh Shah Ricardo Brown

Barbara Jones Susan Yao
Amy Ford Francis Johnson
Jimmy Wang Ramesh Shah

Student - Professor
Professor - Student FN LN
FN LN
John Smith Barbara Jones

Ricardo Brown Amy Ford

Francis Johnson Jimmy Wang

Example - Set Difference
List all cities where there is a branch office but no
properties for rent.

Π city(Branch) – Π city(PropertyForRent)

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Intersection
R∩ S
– Defines a relation consisting of the set of all
tuples that are in both R and S.
– R and S must be union-compatible.

Expressed using basic operations:

R ∩ S = R – (R – S)

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 Intersection Operator Example
Student Professor
FN LN
FN LN
John Smith
Susan Yao
Ricardo Brown
Ramesh Shah Susan Yao
Barbara Jones Francis Johnson

Amy Ford Ramesh Shah

Jimmy Wang

Student ∩ Professor
FN LN
Susan Yao
Ramesh Shah
Example - Intersection
List all cities where there is both a branch office
and at least one property for rent.

Π city(Branch) ∩ Π city(PropertyForRent)

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Cartesian product
RXS
– Defines a relation that is the concatenation of
every tuple of relation R with every tuple of
relation S.

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Example - Cartesian product
List the names and comments of all clients who have
viewed a property for rent.
(Π clientNo, fName, lName(Client)) X (Π clientNo, propertyNo, comment (Viewing))

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Example - Cartesian product and Selection
Use selection operation to extract those tuples where
Client.clientNo = Viewing.clientNo.
σ Client.clientNo = Viewing.clientNo((∏ clientNo, fName, lName(Client)) Χ (∏ clientNo, propertyNo,
comment(Viewing)))

Cartesian product and Selection can be reduced to a single

operation called a Join.
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Join Operations
Join is a derivative of Cartesian product.

Equivalent to performing a Selection, using join

predicate as selection formula, over Cartesian
product of the two operand relations.

One of the most difficult operations to implement

efficiently in an RDBMS and one reason why
RDBMSs have intrinsic performance problems.

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Join Operations
Various forms of join operation
– Theta join
– Equijoin (a particular type of Theta join)
– Natural join
– Outer join
– Semijoin

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Theta join (θ-join)

R FS

– Defines a relation that contains tuples

satisfying the predicate F from the Cartesian
product of R and S.
– The predicate F is of the form R.ai θ S.bi
where θ may be one of the comparison
operators (<, ≤, >, ≥, =, ≠).

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Theta join (θ-join)
Can rewrite Theta join using basic Selection and
Cartesian product operations.

R FS = σ F(R Χ S)

Degree of a Theta join is sum of degrees of the

operand relations R and S. If predicate F contains
only equality (=), the term Equijoin is used.

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Example - Equijoin

List the names and comments of all clients who

have viewed a property for rent.
(Π clientNo, fName, lName(Client)) Client.clientNo = Viewing.clientNo (Π clientNo, propertyNo,
comment(Viewing))

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Natural join
R S
– An Equijoin of the two relations R and S over all
common attributes x. One occurrence of each
common attribute is eliminated from the result.

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Example - Natural join
List the names and comments of all clients who
have viewed a property for rent.
(Π clientNo, fName, lName(Client))
(Π clientNo, propertyNo, comment(Viewing))

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Outer join
To display rows in the result that do not have
matching values in the join column, use Outer
join.

R S
– (Left) outer join is join in which tuples from
R that do not have matching values in
common columns of S are also included in
result relation.

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Example - Left Outer join

Produce a status report on property viewings.

Π propertyNo, street, city(PropertyForRent)

Viewing

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Semijoin
R FS
– Defines a relation that contains the tuples of R that
participate in the join of R with S.
– It performs a join on two relations and then project
Over the attributes of first operand.

Can rewrite Semijoin using Projection and Join:

R F S = Π A(R F S)
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Example - Semijoin
List complete details of all staff who work at the
branch in Glasgow.

Staff Staff.branchNo=Branch.branchNo (σ city=‘Glasgow’(Branch))

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Division
R÷ S
– Defines a relation over the attributes C that consists of
set of tuples from R that match combination of every
tuple in S.

Expressed using basic operations:

T1 ← Π C(R)
T2 ← Π C((S X T1) – R)
T ← T1 – T2

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Example - Division

Identify all clients who have viewed all properties

with three rooms.

(Π clientNo, propertyNo(Viewing)) ÷
(Π propertyNo(σ rooms = 3 (PropertyForRent)))

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Relational DBMS
The following tables form part of a database held in a
relational DBMS:
Hotel (hotelNo, hotelName, city)
Room (roomNo, hotelNo, type, price)
Booking (hotelNo, guestNo, dateFrom, dateTo,
roomNo)
Guest (guestNo, guestName, guestAddress)

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Exercise – Determine temporary relations

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Exercise – Gererate Relational algebra
List all hotels.
List all single rooms with a price below £20 per night.
List the names and cities of all guests.
List the price and type of all rooms at the Grosvenor
Hotel.
List all guests currently staying at the Grosvenor Hotel.
List the details of all rooms at the Grosvenor Hotel,
including the name of the guest staying in the room, if
the room is occupied.
List the guest details (guestNo, guestName, and
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guestAddress) of all guests staying at the Grosvenor

SQL
Structured Query Language (SQL)
– Standardised by ANSI
– Supported by modern RDBMSs
Commands fall into three groups
– Data Definition Language (DLL)
» Create tables, etc
– Data Manipulation Language (DML)
» Retrieve and modify data
– Data Control Language
» Control what users can do – grant and revoke privileges

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