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Topic 4

Relational Databases

CPS510Database SystemsAbdolreza Abhari

School of Computer ScienceRyerson University

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Topics in this Section

• Relational Model• Relations and relvars• Optimization• The catalog• Transactions

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Relational Model

• Relational model uses table (called relation) to represent a collection of related data values Tables and columns are identified by means of names

» Rows are called tuples and columns are called attributes The number of attributes (i.e., number of columns) is

called the degree– Degree is also called arity

The data type describing the type of values that can appear in each column is called a domain

A domain is a set of atomic values – Each value is indivisible as far as the relational model is

concerned

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Relational Model

• Ordering of tuples Theoretically, tuples in a relation do not have any

particular order In practice, relations are stored as files

» There is always an order among the records

• Ordering of values Since we give names to columns, this ordering is not

important When a relation is implemented as a file, the attributes

are ordered

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Relational Model

• A relation schema R of degree n is represented as R(A1, A2, . . ., An)

• An n-tuple t in a relation r(R) is denoted byt = < V1, V2, . . . , Vn>

where Vi is the value of attribute Ai

» t[Ai] refers to the value of Vi in t» t[Au, Av, . . ., Az] refers to the subtuple of values

< Vu, Vv, . . ., Vz > in t• Further notation

» Q, R, S represent relation names » q, r, s represent relation instances» t, u, v represent tuples

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Relational Model

• Each entity in an entity type needs to be identified uniquely Sometimes artificial attributes are created to facilitate

this identification» E.g. student#, employee#

One or more attributes can be used as an entity identifier

» For marks entity type, student# and course# are required to find the grade

Superkey » A superset of a candidate key is superkey

– Example: employee#, SIN

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Relations and Relvars

• Suppose we say in some programming language: DECLARE N INTEGER ... ; N here is not an integer; it's an integer variable

whose values are integers. It is different integers at different times (that's what variable means).

• In exactly the same way, if we say in SQL: CREATE TABLE T ... ; T here is not a table. It is a relation (table) variable whose values are relations (tables). It is different relations (tables) at different times

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Relations and Relvars

• Relations are values; they can thus be "read" but not updated, by definition. (The one thing you can't do to any value is update it. E.g., consider the value that's the integer 3.)

• Relvars are variables; they can thus be "read" and updated, by definition. (In fact, "variable" really means "updatable." To say that something is a variable is to say, precisely, that that something can be used as the target of an assignment operation.)

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Optimization

• The optimizer is a system component that determines how to implement user request

• Relational systems are responsible for locating the desired data by automatic navigation

• Optimizer has to do some "smart thinking" in order to support such automatic navigation

For example for simple search for a tuple (record) optimizer can do simple sequential search or use index (if there is an index)

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Catalog

• Catalog in a relational system will itself consist of relvars

• The catalog is a set of system relvars whose purpose is to contain descriptors regarding the various objects that are of interest to the system itself, such as base relvars, views, indexes, users, integrity constraints, security constraints, and so on. For example:

TABLE TABNAME COLCOUNT ROWCOUNT

DEPT 3 3

COLUMN TABNAME COLNAME

DEPT DEPT#

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Transaction

• A transaction is a logical unit of work involving several operations that begins by BEGIN TRANSACTION and terminates normally or abnormally.

• Atomicity means that transactions are guaranteed either to execute in their entirety or not to execute at all, even if the system fails halfway through the process.

• Durability means that once a transaction successfully commits, its updates are guaranteed to be applied to the database, even if the system subsequently fails at any point.

• Isolation means that database updates made by a given transaction T1 are kept hidden from all distinct transactions T2 until and unless T1 successfully commits.

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Transaction

• Serializability means that the interleaved execution of a set of concurrent transactions is guaranteed to produce the same result as executing those same transactions one at a time in some (unspecified) serial order.

• Commit (normal termination) is the operation that signals successful end-of-transaction. Any updates made to the database by the transaction in question are now "made permanent" and become visible to other transactions.

• Rollback (abnormal termination) is the operation that signals unsuccessful end-of-transaction. Any updates made to the database by the transaction in question are "rolled back" (undone) and are never made visible to other transactions