The Relational Data Model and
Relational Database Constraints
Outline
Relational Model Concepts
Relational Model Constraints and Relational Database
Schemas
Update Operations and Dealing with Constraint
Violations
The Relational Data Model and Relational Constraints 2
Relational Model Concepts
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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DEFINITION SUMMARY
Informal Terms Formal Terms
Table Relation
Column Attribute/Domain
Row Tuple
Values in a column Domain
Table Definition Schema of a Relation
Populated Table Extension
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Example - Figure 7.1
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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-
Figure 7.2
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Relational Integrity Constraints
Constraints are conditions that must hold
on all valid relation instances. There are
three main types of constraints:
1. Key constraints
2. Entity integrity constraints
3. Referential integrity constraints
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Key Constraints
Key of R: A set of attributes/columns SK of R such that no two tuples in
any valid relation instance r(R) will have the same value for SK (Unique).
or A Set of attributes/Columns of relation R that can uniquely identify a
row/tuple in a table/relation
Primary key If a relation has several key, they are called candidate keys,
one is chosen arbitrarily to be the primary key. The primary key attributes
are underlined.
Secondary/Alternate key If a relation has several candidate keys, one is
chosen as primary key, the others are called alternate /secondary keys.
Example: The CAR relation schema:
CAR(State, Reg#, SerialNo, Make, Model, Year)
has two canidate keys Key1 = {State, Reg#}, Key2 = {SerialNo}, {SerialNo,
Make} is a candiate key but not a primary key.
Composite key vs Simple Key If a key is a contains 2 or more attibutes to
uniquely identify a tuple in a relation the it is Composite Key otherwise it is
Simple Key.
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Key Constraints
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Entity Integrity
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.
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 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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Update Operations on Relations
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 (Updating the Parent Table will update the Child tables ), SET
NULL option (Deleting a tuple in the Parent Table will set the FK attributes Null in
Child tables ))
– Execute a user-specified error-correction routine
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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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