DATABASES

Fall 2016

The Relational Data Model and

Relational Database Constraints

Outline (Chapter 3)
Relational Model Concepts
Relational Model Constraints and Relational Database
Schemas
Update Operations and Dealing with Constraint
Violations

The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints

Relational Model Concepts (ref 3.1)

The relational Model of Data is based on the concept
of a Relation.
A Relation is a mathematical concept based on the
ideas of sets.
The strength of the relational approach to data
management comes from the formal foundation
provided by the theory of relations.
We review the essentials of the relational approach in
this topic.
The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints

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," Communications 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.

The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints

INFORMAL DEFINITIONS
RELATION: A table of values
A relation may be thought of as a set of rows.
A relation may alternately be though of as a set of columns.
Each row represents a fact that corresponds to a real-world entity or
relationship.
Each row has a value of an item or set of items that uniquely
identifies that row in the table.
Sometimes row-ids or sequential numbers are assigned to identify the
rows in the table.
Each column typically is called by its column name or column header
or attribute name.

The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints

FORMAL DEFINITIONS
A Relation may be defined in multiple ways.
The Schema of a Relation: R (A1, A2, .....An)
Relation schema R is defined over attributes A1, A2, .....An
For Example CUSTOMER (Cust-id, Cust-name, Address, Phone#)
Here, CUSTOMER is a relation defined over the four
attributes Cust-id, Cust-name, Address, Phone#, each of
which has a domain or a set of valid values. For example,
the domain of Cust-id is 6 digit numbers.

The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints

FORMAL DEFINITIONS
A tuple is an ordered set of values
Each value is derived from an appropriate domain.
Each row in the CUSTOMER table may be referred to as a
tuple in the table and would consist of four values.
<632895, "John Smith", "101 Main St. Atlanta, GA 30332", "(404) 894-2000">

is a tuple belonging to the CUSTOMER relation.

A relation may be regarded as a set of tuples (rows).
Columns in a table are also called attributes of the relation.

The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints

FORMAL DEFINITIONS
A domain has a logical definition: e.g.,
USA_phone_numbers are the set of 10 digit phone
numbers valid in the U.S.
A domain may have a data-type or a format defined for it.
The USA_phone_numbers may have a format: (ddd)-ddddddd where each d is a decimal digit. E.g., Dates have
various formats such as monthname, date, year or yyyy-mmdd, or dd mm,yyyy etc.
An attribute designates the role played by the domain. E.g.,
the domain Date may be used to define attributes Invoicedate and Payment-date.

The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints

FORMAL DEFINITIONS
The relation is formed over the cartesian product of the sets;
each set has values from a domain; that domain is used in a
specific role which is conveyed by the attribute name.
For example, attribute Cust-name is defined over the domain of
strings of 25 characters. The role these strings play in the
CUSTOMER relation is that of the name of customers.
Formally,
Given R(A1, A2, .........., An)
r(R) dom (A1) X dom (A2) X ....X dom(An)

R: schema of the relation

r of R: a specific "value" or population of R.
R is also called the intension of a relation
r is also called the extension of a relation
The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints

FORMAL DEFINITIONS
Let S1 = {0,1}
Let S2 = {a,b,c}
Let R S1 X S2
Then for example: r(R) = {<0,a> , <0,b> , <1,c> }
is one possible state or population or
extension r of the relation R, defined over domains
S1 and S2. It has three tuples.
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DEFINITION SUMMARY
Informal Terms

Formal Terms

Table
Column
Row
Values in a column
Table Definition
Populated Table

Relation
Attribute/Domain
Tuple
Domain
Schema of a Relation
Extension

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Example - Figure

3.1

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CHARACTERISTICS OF RELATIONS
Ordering of tuples in a relation r(R): The tuples are not
considered to be ordered, even though they appear to be in
the tabular form.
Ordering of attributes in a relation schema R (and of
values within each tuple): We will consider the attributes
in R(A1, A2, ..., An) and the values in t=<v1, v2, ..., vn> to be
ordered .
(However, a more general alternative definition of relation
does not require this ordering).
Values in a tuple: All values are considered atomic
(indivisible). A special null value is used to represent
values that are unknown or inapplicable to certain tuples.
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CHARACTERISTICS OF RELATIONS

Notation:
- We refer to component values of a tuple t
by t[Ai] = vi (the value of attribute Ai for
tuple t).
Similarly, t[Au, Av, ..., Aw] refers to the
subtuple of t containing the values of
attributes Au, Av, ..., Aw, respectively.
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CHARACTERISTICS OF RELATIONSFigure 3.2

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Relational Integrity Constraints

(ref 3.2)
Constraints are conditions that must hold
on all valid relation instances. There are
the following main types of constraints:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Key constraints
Entity integrity constraints
Referential integrity constraints
Domain constraints

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Key Constraints
Superkey of R: A set of attributes SK of R such that no two
tuples in any valid relation instance r(R) will have the same
value for SK. That is, for any distinct tuples t1 and t2 in r(R),
t1[SK] t2[SK].
Key of R: A "minimal" superkey; that is, a superkey K such
that removal of any attribute from K results in a set of
attributes that is not a superkey.
Example: The CAR relation schema:
CAR(State, Reg#, SerialNo, Make, Model, Year)
has two keys Key1 = {State, Reg#}, Key2 = {SerialNo}, which are also
superkeys. {SerialNo, Make} is a superkey but not a key.

If a relation has several candidate keys, one is chosen

arbitrarily to be the primary key. The primary key attributes
are underlined.
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Key Constraints

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Entity Integrity
Relational Database Schema: A set S of relation schemas
that belong to the same database. S is the name of the
database.
S = {R1, R2, ..., Rn}
Entity Integrity: The primary key attributes PK of each
relation schema R in S cannot have null values in any tuple
of r(R). This is because primary key values are used to
identify the individual tuples.
t[PK] null for any tuple t in r(R)
Note: Other attributes of R may be similarly constrained
to disallow null values, even though they are not members
of the primary key.
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Referential Integrity
A constraint involving two relations (the previous
constraints involve a single relation).
Used to specify a relationship among tuples in two
relations: the referencing relation and the referenced
relation.
Tuples in the referencing relation R1 have attributes FK
(called foreign key attributes) that reference the primary
key attributes PK of the referenced relation R2. A tuple t1
in R1 is said to reference a tuple t2 in R2 if t1[FK] = t2[PK].
A referential integrity constraint can be displayed in a
relational database schema as a directed arc from R1.FK to
R2.
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Referential Integrity
Constraint
Statement of the constraint
The value in the foreign key column (or columns)
FK of the the referencing relation R1 can be either:
(1) a value of an existing primary key value of the
corresponding primary key PK in the referenced
relation R2,, or..
(2) a null.
In case (2), the FK in R1 should not be a part of its own
primary key.
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Other Types of Constraints

Semantic Integrity Constraints:
- based on application semantics and cannot be
expressed by the model per se
- E.g., the max. no. of hours per employee for all
projects he or she works on is 56 hrs per week
- A constraint specification language may have to
be used to express these
- SQL-99 allows triggers and ASSERTIONS to
allow for some of these
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In-Class Exercise
Consider the following relations for a database that keeps
track of student enrollment in courses and the books adopted
for each course:
STUDENT(SSN, Name, Major, Bdate)
COURSE(Course#, Cname, Dept)
ENROLL(SSN, Course#, Quarter, Grade)
BOOK_ADOPTION(Course#, Quarter, Book_ISBN)
TEXT(Book_ISBN, Book_Title, Publisher, Author)
Draw a relational schema diagram specifying the foreign
keys for this schema.

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Update Operations on Relations

(ref 3.3)

INSERT a tuple.
DELETE a tuple.
MODIFY a tuple.

Integrity constraints should not be violated by the update

operations.
Several update operations may have to be grouped
together.
Updates may propagate to cause other updates
automatically. This may be necessary to maintain integrity
constraints.
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Update Operations on Relations

In case of integrity violation, several actions can
be taken:
Cancel the operation that causes the violation (REJECT
option)
Perform the operation but inform the user of the
violation
Trigger additional updates so the violation is corrected
(CASCADE option, SET NULL option)
Execute a user-specified error-correction routine

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The Insert Operation

The Insert operation provides a list of
attribute values for a new tuple t that is to
be inserted into a relation R
Insert can violate any of the four types of
constraints

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The Delete Operation

The Delete operation can violate only the

referential integrity constraint, if the tuple being
deleted is referenced by the foreign keys from
other tuples in the database.

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The Update Operation

The Update operation is used to change the values of

one or more attributes in a tuple (or tuples) of some
relation R.
Update can violate any of the four types of constraints

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Homework
Solve exercise questions 3.11 to 3.17

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