Relational DBMS


Motivating Questions
• From last time: Is MS Excel a DBMS?

• What makes some databases relational, while

others are not?

• Why do so many people use them?

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 1

 RDBMS: Basic Principles

• Based on a variant of n-ary relations

• Relations are the main data structure
• A relational database consists of 1 or more relations
• Connections and relationships represented by values
of data, not by physical references
– Reference by value
– Reference by location
• Natural representation as tables

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 2

 Relations: Definitions

• A relation R is a set of n-tuples <d1,d2 …,dn>

• di is a domain
– may be infinite and may be non-unique
– all domains contain the NULL value. Null value
represents either attributes whose value is not
known, or do not exist
• n is the degree of the relation
• The number of tuples in a relation is the cardinality of
the relation

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 3

 Relations: Definitions and Properties

• Because R is a set of n-tuples:

– the ordering of the n-tuples in R is immaterial
– the n-tuples are distinct
• An n-tuple is an ordered list of values:
– The ith value is in the ith domain
– The ordering of domains is significant

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 4

 Relations: Properties

• Values of each column are homogeneous

(belong to the same domain)
• Rows are different with respect to one another
R is a set of tuples (not a bag)
• The order of columns is irrelevant, they are identified
by name, not by position
• The order of rows is irrelevant, they are identified by
content, not by position

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 5

 Relations: Definitions and Properties

• Some loose definitions:

– “attribute” corresponds to a named table column;
– “tuple” corresponds to a table row;
– “values” correspond to table cells
– each attribute has a domain set from which its
values come from

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 6

 Relation: Example

Attributes

BUILDING
Build.num Street name Nb floors Value
412 Laurier 2 142000
Tuple 415 Laurier 3 167000
287 Ste-Foy 3 256000
288 Ste-Foy 2 195000

Values

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 7

 Schemas and Instances

• Relation schema: A relation name and a set of distinct

attribute names: R(A1 A2 ….An)
Database schema: A set of relation schema with distinct
relation names: R
• Relation instance defined over schema R (X): finite set r of
tuples over X
Database instance defined over schema R:
R = (R1 (X1), R2 (X2), ….Rn(Xn) )
= a set of relations (r1, r2, …., rn)

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 8

 Constraints

• What are they ?

– represent the semantics of the miniworld being modeled.
– restrict the set of possible database states.
• Why do we want to specify the constraints?
– Useful information to application programmers. They can
write programs to prevent constraints violation:
• example: acct balance should not fall below 0 £
– DBMS might enforce specified constraints directly
making task of application writer easier !

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 9

 Constraints in RDBMS

• Domain constraints
• Primary keys
• Foreign keys
• Entity integrity
• Referential integrity
• Semantic integrity

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 10

 Constraints

• Principles:
– Defined for a database schema
– Must hold for every database instance

• Domain Integrity:
– All values for an attribute must be a value from the
attribute’s domain
– Must be a SINGLETON (atomic) value
(First-normal form)

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 11

 Primary Keys


A key is a set of columns that together makes each
row distinct

No two rows will have the same value of this key
(implies that no two rows are allowed to be identical)

A primary key is usually included as a single column
(e.g., ID)

Every relation has a key

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 12

 Primary keys: Example

ModuleInfo(C#, semester, room, time, instructor)

• Each module: one semester and one instructor

key = {C#, semester}
• Each course: one semester and > 1 instructor
key = {C#, semester, instructor}

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 13

 Primary keys


Aplication :
– DBMS can check if the the tuple being inserted
matches an existing tuple on the attributes in the
key and disallow such insertions
– Similarly, a primary key should not contain a null
value since then it may not be possible to identify
some tuples

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 14

 Foreign Keys


Foreign keys refer to primary keys in other tables
(e.g., Phys)

Foreign keys allow to represent relationships in
RDBMS

A referential integrity constraint from the attribute
Phys of Patient to Physicians means that Phys is a
foreign key that refers to the primary key of
Physicians

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 15

 Foreign Keys in Relations: Example

Physicians

ID Name Phone

Patient

Num Pt Enc_Date Phys

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 16

 Referential integrity


If we keep a list of existing Physicians -
Physicians.ID = {1, 2, 3}, and have a referential
integrity constraint saying that every value of
Patient.Phys must also be a value of Physicians.Id
then we can reject the following request:

insert into Patient values (“15”, “Smith”, “1-01-98”, “15”);

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 17

 Entity & Referential Integrity

• Entity Integrity:
– Must be able to distinguish two entities by their primary
key
– No primary key value may be NULL
– No restriction on non-primary key values

• Referential Integrity:
– A tuple containing a non-NULL foreign key must refer to
an existing tuple in the foreign relation

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 18

 Semantic Integrity

• Not all finite set of tuples are acceptable :

– even if tuples have the right degree and attribute values:

ID Name Age

10932664 Dick 140

10932561 Jane 41
10932561 Spot 36

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 19

 Data Definition Language (DDL)

• Used to encode database structure, including:

– Table Definition (Name, Field Names,
Domains,Keys)
– Indexes/Physical Keys
– Constraints needed to ensure referential integrity,
validity, etc.

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 20

 Data Manipulation Language (DML)

• Used to add/delete/modify records in table instances

• Categories:
– Relational algebra and Relational Calculus
– Transform-oriented language (e.g., SQL)
– Query-By-Example (QBE)
• User Views/Interfaces:
– Forms
– Application programs
• Query/update language commands

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 21

 Levels of Abstraction & Optimization


Relational languages and DBMS are highly “non-
procedural”

Query describes table needed

DBMS figures out how to produce it

… but some queries are better than others

ambiguities

speed

computer system resources used

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 22

 Relational DBMS: People involved


DBMS designers and implementers

Tool designers

Database administrator (DBA) I.e. ‘super-user’ for a database, similar to a
system administrator. DBA can define schemas, views, authorization,
indexes, tuning parameters, etc.

Application programmers

Database designers (interact with users to define database at all levels)

Operators and maintenance

End users

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 23

 Relational DBMS: Technology Trends

• Popularity of network of workstations (client-server database technology)

• Expanding Internet (information filtering over the net, digital library, security
and protection over the net, new transaction management issues)
• Reducing cost of secondary storage.
• large databases (many terrabytes, may be petabytes) of digital images,
video and other complex data -- satellite images, medical images, etc.
• data mining -- searching for useful knowledge in large volumes of data.

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 24

 Relational DBMS: Application Pull


New applications -- Computer Aided Design and Manufacturing, Image
and graphic databases, geometric databases.

Relational model not very good for modeling data in these domains

Led to emergence of Object oriented database management systems. that
are designed to meet the requirements of these complex domains.

Key features:
– flexibility to meet the requirements of these domains without being
limited by data type and query language.
– power to designer to specify both structure of complex objects and
their behavior (operations)

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 25

 Relational concepts

• Review:
– What’s a RDBMS ?
– What’s a relation ?
– How are they represented in a DBMS?
– Where do these relations come from?

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 26

 Discussion: Is MS Excel a RDBMS?


Is a spreadsheet a database?

Does MS Excel do all the functions of a database?
How?

Data definition

Data manipulation

Data security & integrity

Data recovery and concurrency

Data dictionary

Query optimization
The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 27
 RDBMS Product Examples


DBase:
– A standard for PC DBMS products, includes
– dBase language (std)
– browser
– application generator
– SQL
– and other tools

Paradox:
– Paradox language
– usual tools
– Front end for SQL db areas

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 28

 RDBMS Product Examples


Gupta SQLBase with SQL Windows :
– new kids on block (startup from other companies)
– good early reviews
– 1st client-server on PCs
– clean gateway to IBM’s DB2
– supports blobs, cursors
– good development environment

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 29

 RDBMS Product Examples


Microsoft SQL Server :
– fastest PC DBMS
– usual suite of tools
– extension of dBase language

Access :
– newest offering
– Visual Basic front end to SQL and usual tools
– Can read files from other PC DBMS vendors
– hot seller

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 30

 RDBMS Product Examples


Ingres :
– Descendant of Berkeley project (Postgres)
– still the most technically polished products, innovative
(e.g. in distributed DBMSs, rules)
– Good tools for DBA, application creation

Oracle and Sybase :
– Fairly technically advanced (early with client/server,
triggers)
– Major commercial SQL product

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 31

 Review Questions


What is meant by relational database structure?

What are the minimal constraints ? Why do we need
them?
• What’s a relation again?
• How are they represented in a DBMS?

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 32

 Exercises
CUSTOMER SALES_ORDER
Cust-no Name Address Order-no Date Cust-no

C45 Smith Smith 11 1/7/97 C45

C46 Baker Paul 12 15/7/97 C46

Foreign key
Primary key

(1) For each of the following tuples, states which, if any, of the integrity rules are
violated when they are added to the SALES_ORDER relation:
<14, 1/6/97, C45> <15, 1/7/97, null>
<16, 5/7/97, C52> <17, 10/7/98, null>

The Nottingham Trent University - Department of Computing - C. Claramunt 33