SQL: Constraints and Triggers

Chapter 5, 5.7-5.8

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Integrity Constraints (Review)

An IC describes conditions that every legal instance of a relation must satisfy.

Inserts/deletes/updates that violate ICs are disallowed. Can be used to ensure application semantics (e.g., sid is a key), or prevent inconsistencies (e.g., sname has to be a string, age must be < 200)

Types of ICs: Domain constraints, primary key constraints, foreign key constraints, general constraints.

Domain constraints: Field values must be of right type. Always enforced.

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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

General Constraints: CHECK

Syntax: CHECK conditional-expression. The conditional expression captures more general ICs than keys. The conditional expressions can use queries. The conditional expressions required to hold only if the associated table is nonempty. A CHECK constraint may be expressed over several tables; however, it is often expressed over one single table. Constraints can be named:
CONSTRAINT MyConstraint CHECK conditional-expression

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

CHECK Constraints: Examples

Constraint: Rating must be in the range 1 to 10
CREATE TABLE Sailors ( sid INTEGER, sname CHAR(10), rating INTEGER, age REAL, PRIMARY KEY (sid), CHECK ( rating >= 1 AND rating <= 10 ))

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

CHECK Constraints: Examples

Constraint: Interlake boats cannot be reserved
CREATE TABLE Reserves ( sname CHAR(10), bid INTEGER, day DATE, PRIMARY KEY (bid,day), CONSTRAINT noInterlakeRes CHECK (`Interlake <> ( SELECT B.bname FROM Boats B WHERE B.bid=bid)))
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General Constraints: ASSERTION

Constraint: Number of boats plus number of sailors is < 100
CREATE TABLE Sailors ( sid INTEGER, sname CHAR(10), rating INTEGER, age REAL, PRIMARY KEY (sid), CHECK ( (SELECT COUNT (S.sid) FROM Sailors S) + (SELECT COUNT (B.bid) FROM Boats B) < 100 )

This solution is awkward and wrong:

It is wrongfully associated only with Sailors, though it involves both Sailors and Boats. If Sailors is empty, the number of Boats tuples can be anything, since the conditional expression is not required to hold in such case!

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

General Constraints: ASSERTION

Constraint: Number of boats plus number of sailors is < 100
CREATE ASSERTION smallClub CHECK ( (SELECT COUNT (S.sid) FROM Sailors S) + (SELECT COUNT (B.bid) FROM Boats B) < 100 )

The assertion is not associated with any one of the tables involved. ASSERTION is the right solution; not associated with either table.
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

General Constraints: Further Examples

Schema: Students(sid: int, sname: string, age: int, cgpa: real) Works(sid: int, pid: int, pct_time: int) Projects(did: int, budget: real, ta: int)

Write SQL integrity constraints (domain, key, foreign key, or CHECK constraints; or assertions) for given requirements:
Students must have a minimum cgpa of 5. Every TA must also be a student. The total percentage of all assignments to projects for a given student must be at most 100%. A TA must have a cgpa higher than any student that she coaches.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

General Constraints: Further Examples (1)

Constraint: Students must have a minimum cgpa of 5.
CREATE TABLE Students ( sid INTEGER, sname CHAR(10), age REAL, cgpa REAL, PRIMARY KEY (sid), CHECK ( cgpa >= 5))

Constraint: Every TA must also be a student.

CREATE ASSERTION TAisStudent CHECK ( (SELECT COUNT (*) FROM Projects P WHERE P.ta_id NOT IN (SELECT sid
Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

FROM Students)) =0 )
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General Constraints: Further Examples (2)

Constraint: The total percentage of all assignments to
projects for a student must be at most 100%.
CREATE TABLE Works ( sid INTEGER, pid INTEGER, pct_time INTEGER, PRIMARY KEY (sid,pid), FOREIGN KEY (sid) REFERENCES Students, FOREIGN KEY (pid) REFERENCES Projects, CHECK ((SELECT COUNT (W.stid)

FROM Works W GROUP BY W.stid HAVING SUM(pct_time) > 100) = 0)

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 10

General Constraints: Further Examples (3)

Constraint: A TA must have a cgpa higher than any student that she coaches.
CREATE ASSERTION TAHigherCGPA CHECK ((SELECT COUNT(S.stid) FROM Students S, Students TA, Works W, Projects P

WHERE S.sid=W.sid AND W.pid=P.pid AND P.ta=TA.sid AND S.cgpa > TA.cgpa) =0)

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

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Triggers
Trigger: procedure that starts automatically if specified changes occur to the DBMS Three parts:

Event (activates the trigger) Condition (tests whether the triggers should run) Action (what happens if the trigger runs)

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

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Triggers

BEFORE trigger: action executed before the activating event occurs. AFTER trigger: action executed after the activating event occurs. INSTEAD trigger: action executed instead of the activating event. Row-level trigger: executed once per modified row (that satisfies the trigger condition). Statement-level trigger: executed once per modifying statement. Transition variables: NEW, OLD, NEW TABLE, OLD TABLE.
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Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Triggers: Example (SQL:92)

Increment a count for each newly inserted sailor whose age < 18. CREATE TRIGGER incr_count AFTER INSERT ON Sailors WHEN (new.age < 18) FOR EACH ROW BEGIN count:=count+1; END
Illustrates use of NEW to refer to newly inserted tuples Exists since SQL:92
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Triggers: Example (SQL:1999)

Save newly inserted sailors aged < 18 in a special table.
CREATE TRIGGER youngSailorsUpdate AFTER INSERT ON Sailors REFERENCING NEW TABLE AS NewSailors FOR EACH STATEMENT /* This is the default */ INSERT INTO YoungSailors(sid, name, age, rating) SELECT sid, name, age, rating FROM NewSailors N WHERE N.age <= 18

Illustrates use of NEW TABLE to refer to a set of newly inserted tuples Exists since SQL:1999
Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke 15

Triggers: More Elaborated Example

Whenever a student is given a (bonus) raise on his cgpa, the TAs cgpa must be increased to be at least as high.
CREATE TRIGGER bumpTAcgpa AFTER UPDATE ON Students WHEN OLD.cgpa < NEW.cgpa FOR EACH ROW BEGIN UPDATE Students S SET S.cgpa = NEW.cgpa WHERE S.cgpa < NEW.cgpa AND S.sid IN (SELECT P.ta FROM STudents S1, Works W, Projects P WHERE S1.sid = NEW.sid AND S1.sid = W.sid AND W.sid = P.sid); END
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Illustrates use of Oracle PL/SQL syntax in the action part.

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

Summary
SQL allows specification of rich integrity constraints Triggers respond to changes in the database

Database Management Systems 3ed, R. Ramakrishnan and J. Gehrke

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