39f1b9a797dbms chapter2 b.sc2 (1)

Module II: Relational Database & ER Model

Contents

Relational System, Codd’s Rule, Relational Model, Optimization, Tables and Views, Entity, Types of Entity, Weak Entity Attributes , Entity sets , Entity – Relationship Diagrams.

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.

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.

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.

Example -

Typical DBMS Functionality

• Define a database : in terms of data types, structures and constraints

• Construct or Load the Database on a secondary storage medium

• Manipulating the database : querying, generating reports, insertions, deletions and modifications to its content

• Concurrent Processing and Sharing by a set of users and programs – yet, keeping all data valid and consistent

CODD’S RULES

1 Information Rule2 Guaranteed Access Rule3 Systematic Treatment of Nulls Rule4  Active On-line catalog based on the relational model5 Comprehensive Data Sub-language Rule6 View Updating Rule7  High-Level Insert, Update and Delete8  Physical Data Independence9  Logical Data Independence10 Integrity Independence11 Distribution Independence12 No subversion Rule

Definitions

• An entity is an object in the miniworld.

• An attribute of an entity can have a value from a value set (domain)

• Each entity belongs to some one entity type s.t. entities in one entity type have the same attributes (so each entity type is a set of similar entities).

Definitions (con’t)

• A key attribute of an entity type is one whose value uniquely identifies an entity of that type.

• A combination of attributes may form a composite key.

• If there is no applicable value for an attribute that attribute is set to a null value.

Entity Type / Entity Set

Entity Type (Intension): EMPLOYEE

Attributes: Name, Age, Salary

Entity Set (Extension): e1 = (John Smith, 55, 80000)e2 = (Joe Doe, 40, 20000)e3 = (Jane Doe, 27, 30000)

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Attributes

• Attributes can be– composite / simple (atomic)– single-valued / multivalued– stored / derived– key / nonkey.

EMPLOYEEName, SSN, Sex, Address, Salary, Birthdate, Department, Supervisor, {Works on ( Project, Hours)}

WORKS_FOR

EMPLOYEE DEPARTMENT

1NName SSN . . .

Relationship instances of WORKS_FOR:{(KV, CS), (Pan, EE), . . .}

ER Diagram for COMPANY Database

Relationship Type

• A relationship type R among n entity types E1,…,En is a set of relationship instances ri, where each ri associates n entities (e1,…,en), s.t. each ej Ej. Informally, a relationship instance is an association of entities, with exactly one entity from each participating entity type.

Relationship Type (con’t)

• The degree n of a relationship type is the number of participating entity types.

• In the ER model relationships are explicitly represented.

Entity Roles

• Each entity type in a relationship type plays a particular role that is described by a role name. Role names are especially important in recursive relationship types where the same entity participates in more than one role:

Employee

Supervision

Supervisor 1 N Supervisee

Weak Entity Type

• A weak entity type is one without any key attributes of its own. Entities belonging to a weak entity type are identified by being related to another entity type ( called identifying owner) through a relationship type ( called identifying relationship), in combination with values of a set of its own attributes (called partial key). A weak entity type has total participation constraint w.r.t. its identifying relationship.

Relationship Attributes

• Relationship types can have attributes as well. in case of 1:1 or 1:N relationships, attributes can be migrated to one of the participating entity types.

Structural Constraints

• Structural constraints of a relationship type:– Cardinality ratio: Limits the number of

relationship instances an entity can participate in, eg. 1:1, 1:N, M:N

– Participation constraint: If each entity of an entity type is required to participate in some instance of a relationship type, then that participation is total; otherwise, it is partial.

Structural Constraint Min, Max

• A more complete specification of the structural constraint on a relationship type can be given by the integer pair (min, max), which means an entity must participate in at least min and at most max relationship instances.

A ternary relationship generally represents more information than 3 binary relationships