DATABASE SYSTEMS

UNIVERSITAS TARUMANAGARA
 Course Schedule
1. Introduction to Databases 7–9 Entity‐Relationship Modeling
2. Database Environment 10–12 Normalization
3. The Relational Model 13. Conceptual Database Design
4. Relational Algebra 14. Logical Database Design
5. Relational Calculus
6. Database Planning, Design, and Administration

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 Chapter 3
The Relational Model

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Chapter 3 ‐ Objectives
• Terminology of relational model.
• How tables are used to represent data.
• Connection between mathematical relations and relations in the
relational model.
• Properties of database relations.
• How to identify candidate, primary, and foreign keys.
• Meaning of entity integrity and referential integrity.
• Purpose and advantages of views.

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Relational Model Terminology
• A relation is a table with columns and rows.
• Only applies to logical structure of the database, not the physical
structure.

• Attribute is a named column of a relation.

• Domain is the set of allowable values for one or more attributes.

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Relational Model Terminology

• Tuple is a row of a relation.

• Degree is the number of attributes in a relation.

• Cardinality is the number of tuples in a relation.

• Relational Database is a collection of normalized relations with

distinct relation names.

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Instances of Branch and Staff (part) Relations

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Examples of Attribute Domains

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Alternative Terminology for Relational Model

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Mathematical Definition of Relation

• Consider two sets, D1 & D2, where D1 = {2, 4} and D2 = {1, 3, 5}.
• Cartesian product, D1  D2, is set of all ordered pairs, where first
element is member of D1 and second element is member of D2.

D1  D2 = {(2, 1), (2, 3), (2, 5), (4, 1), (4, 3), (4, 5)}

• Alternative way is to find all combinations of elements with first from

D1 and second from D2.

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Mathematical Definition of Relation
• Any subset of Cartesian product is a relation; e.g.
R = {(2, 1), (4, 1)}
• May specify which pairs are in relation using some condition for
selection; e.g.
• second element is 1:
R = {(x, y) | x D1, y D2, and y = 1}
• first element is always twice the second:
S = {(x, y) | x D1, y D2, and x = 2y}

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Mathematical Definition of Relation
• Consider three sets D1, D2, D3 with Cartesian Product D1  D2 
D3; e.g.

D1 = {1, 3} D2 = {2, 4} D3 = {5, 6}

D1  D2  D3 = {(1,2,5), (1,2,6), (1,4,5), (1,4,6), (3,2,5), (3,2,6), (3,4,5),
(3,4,6)}

• Any subset of these ordered triples is a relation.

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 Mathematical Definition of Relation
• The Cartesian product of n sets (D1, D2, . . ., Dn) is:

D1  D2  . . .  Dn = {(d1, d2, . . . , dn) | d1 D1, d2 D2, . . . ,

dnDn}
usually written as:
n
XDi
i=1

• Any set of n-tuples from this Cartesian product is a relation on the n

sets.

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Database Relations
•Relation schema
• Named relation defined by a set of attribute and domain name pairs.

•Relational database schema

• Set of relation schemas, each with a distinct name.

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Properties of Relations
• Relation name is distinct from all other relation names in relational
schema.

• Each cell of relation contains exactly one atomic (single) value.

• Each attribute has a distinct name.

• Values of an attribute are all from the same domain.

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Properties of Relations
• Each tuple is distinct; there are no duplicate tuples.

• Order of attributes has no significance.

• Order of tuples has no significance, theoretically.

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Relational Keys
• Superkey
• An attribute, or a set of attributes, that uniquely identifies
a tuple within a relation.

• Candidate Key
• Superkey (K) such that no proper subset is a superkey
within the relation.
• In each tuple of R, values of K uniquely identify that tuple
(uniqueness).
• No proper subset of K has the uniqueness property
(irreducibility).

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Relational Keys
• Primary Key
• Candidate key selected to identify tuples uniquely
within relation.

• Alternate Keys
• Candidate keys that are not selected to be primary key.

• Foreign Key
• Attribute, or set of attributes, within one relation that
matches candidate key of some (possibly same)
relation.

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Relational Integrity
• Null
• Represents value for an attribute that is currently
unknown or not applicable for tuple.
• Deals with incomplete or exceptional data.
• Represents the absence of a value and is not the
same as zero or spaces, which are values.

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Relational Integrity
• Entity Integrity
• In a base relation, no attribute of a primary key can be null.

• Referential Integrity
• If foreign key exists in a relation, either foreign key value must match a
candidate key value of some tuple in its home relation or foreign key
value must be wholly null.

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Relational Integrity
• Enterprise Constraints
• Additional rules specified by users or database administrators.

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Views
• Base Relation
• Named relation corresponding to an entity in conceptual schema, whose
tuples are physically stored in database.

• View
• Dynamic result of one or more relational operations operating on base
relations to produce another relation.

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 Views
• A virtual relation that does not necessarily actually exist in the
database but is produced upon request, at time of request.

• Contents of a view are defined as a query on one or more base

relations.

• Views are dynamic, meaning that changes made to base relations

that affect view attributes are immediately reflected in the view.

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Views

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Purpose of Views
• Provides powerful and flexible security mechanism by hiding parts
of database from certain users.

• Permits users to access data in a customized way, so that same

data can be seen by different users in different ways, at same
time.

• Can simplify complex operations on base relations.

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 Updating Views
• All updates to a base relation should be immediately reflected in
all views that reference that base relation.

• If view is updated, underlying base relation should reflect change.

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Updating Views
• There are restrictions on types of modifications that can
be made through views:
 Updates are allowed if query involves a single base
relation and contains a candidate key of base relation.
 Updates are not allowed involving multiple base
relations.
 Updates are not allowed involving aggregation or
grouping operations.

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Updating Views

• Classes of views are defined as:

• theoretically not updateable;
• theoretically updateable;
• partially updateable.

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Example

EmpID Name Email DeptID Address

Superkey: ……………………………...
Candidate Key: ………………………..
Primary Key: ……………………………
Alternate Key: ………………………..

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 Thank You

Reference: Database Systems A Practical Approach to Design, Implementation, and

Management Fourth Edition.
Thomas M. Connolly and Carolyn E. Begg

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