Relational Calculus

Zachary G. IvesUniversity of Pennsylvania

CIS 550 – Database & Information Systems

September 17, 2007

Some slide content courtesy of Susan Davidson & Raghu Ramakrishnan

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Administrivia

Reminder: Homework 1 due 9/26 (next Wednesday)

Change to office hours due to conflict: Mondays 3:30-4:30 instead of Wednesdays

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A Set of Logical Operations: The Relational Algebra

Six basic operations: Projection (R) Selection (R) Union R1 [ R2

Difference R1 – R2

Product R1 £ R2

(Rename) (R) And some other useful ones:

Join R1 ⋈ R2

Intersection R1 Å R2 SELECT *

FROM STUDENT, Takes, COURSE

WHERE STUDENT.sid = Takes.sID

AND Takes.cID = cid

STUDENT

Takes COURSE

Calculus

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Our Example Data Instance

sid name

1 Jill

2 Qun

3 Nitin

fid name

1 Ives

2 Saul

8 Roth

sid exp-grade

cid

1 A 550-0105

1 A 700-1005

3 C 501-0105

cid subj sem

550-0105 DB F05

700-1005 AI S05

501-0105 Arch F05

fid cid

1 550-0105

2 700-1005

8 501-0105

STUDENT Takes COURSE

PROFESSOR Teaches

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Some Examples

Faculty ids

Subjects for courses with students expecting a “C”

All course numbers for which there exists a smaller course number

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Domain Relational Calculus

Queries have form:

{<x1,x2, …, xn>| p}

Predicate: Boolean expression over x1,x2, …, xn Precise operations depend on the domain and

query language – may include special functions, etc.

Assume the following at minimum:<xi,xj,…> R X op Y X op const const op X

where op is , , , , , xi,xj,… are domain variables

domain variables

predicate

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Complex Predicates in the Calculus

Starting with these atomic predicates, build up new predicates by the following rules: Logical connectives: If p and q are predicates,

then so are p q, p q, p, and p q (x>2) (x<4) (x>2) (x>0)

Existential quantification: If p is a predicate, then so is x.p

x. (x>2) (x<4)

Universal quantification: If p is a predicate, then so is x.p

x.x>2 x. y.y>x

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Some Examples

Faculty ids

Subjects for courses with students expecting a “C”

All course numbers for which there exists a smaller course number

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Logical Equivalences

There are two logical equivalences that will be heavily used: p q p q

(Whenever p is true, q must also be true.) x. p(x) x. p(x)

(p is true for all x) The second can be a lot easier to check!

Example: The highest course number offered

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Terminology: Free and Bound Variables

A variable v is bound in a predicate p when p is of the form v… or v…

A variable occurs free in p if it occurs in a position where it is not bound by an enclosing or

Examples: x is free in x > 2 x is bound in x. x > y

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Can Rename Bound Variables Only

When a variable is bound one can replace it with some other variable without altering the meaning of the expression, providing there are no name clashes

Example: x. x > 2 is equivalent to y. y > 2

Otherwise, the variable is defined outside our “scope”…

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Safety Pitfall in what we have done so far – how do we

interpret: {<sid,name>| <sid,name> STUDENT}

Set of all binary tuples that are not students: an infinite set (and unsafe query)

A query is safe if no matter how we instantiate the relations, it always produces a finite answer Domain independent: answer is the same regardless

of the domain in which it is evaluated Unfortunately, both this definition of safety and

domain independence are semantic conditions, and are undecidable

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Safety and Termination Guarantees

There are syntactic conditions that are used to guarantee “safe” formulas The definition is complicated, and we won’t discuss

it; you can find it in Ullman’s Principles of Database and Knowledge-Base Systems

The formulas that are expressible in real query languages based on relational calculus are all “safe”

Many DB languages include additional features, like recursion, that must be restricted in certain ways to guarantee termination and consistent answers

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Mini-Quiz

How do you write: Which students have taken more than one

course from the same professor?

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Translating from RA to DRC

Core of relational algebra: , , , x, - We need to work our way through the

structure of an RA expression, translating each possible form. Let TR[e] be the translation of RA expression e

into DRC.

Relation names: For the RA expression R, the DRC expression is {<x1,x2, …, xn>| <x1,x2, …, xn> R}

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Selection: TR[ R]

Suppose we have (e’), where e’ is another RA expression that translates as:

TR[e’]= {<x1,x2, …, xn>| p} Then the translation of c(e’) is

{<x1,x2, …, xn>| p’}where ’ is obtained from by replacing each attribute with the corresponding variable

Example: TR[#1=#2 #4>2.5R] (if R has arity 4) is

{<x1,x2, x3, x4>|< x1,x2, x3, x4> R x1=x2 x4>2.5}

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Projection: TR[i1,…,im(e)]

If TR[e]= {<x1,x2, …, xn>| p} then TR[i1,i2,…,im

(e)]=

{<x i1,x i2

, …, x im >| xj1,xj2

, …, xjk.p},

where xj1,xj2

, …, xjk are variables in x1,x2, …, xn

that are not in x i1,x i2

, …, x im

Example: With R as before,#1,#3 (R)={<x1,x3>| x2,x4. <x1,x2, x3,x4> R}

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Union: TR[R1 R2] R1 and R2 must have the same arity For e1 e2, where e1, e2 are algebra

expressionsTR[e1]={<x1,…,xn>|p} and TR[e2]={<y1,…yn>|q}

Relabel the variables in the second:TR[e2]={< x1,…,xn>|q’}

This may involve relabeling bound variables in q to avoid clashesTR[e1e2]={<x1,…,xn>|pq’}.

Example: TR[R1 R2] = {< x1,x2, x3,x4>| <x1,x2, x3,x4>R1 <x1,x2, x3,x4>R2

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Other Binary Operators

Difference: The same conditions hold as for unionIf TR[e1]={<x1,…,xn>|p} and TR[e2]={< x1,…,xn>|q}

Then TR[e1- e2]= {<x1,…,xn>|pq}

Product: If TR[e1]={<x1,…,xn>|p} and TR[e2]={< y1,…,ym>|q}

Then TR[e1 e2]= {<x1,…,xn, y1,…,ym >| pq}

Example: TR[RS]= {<x1,…,xn, y1,…,ym >|

<x1,…,xn> R <y1,…,ym > S }

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What about the Tuple Relational Calculus?

We’ve been looking at the Domain Relational Calculus

The Tuple Relational Calculus is nearly the same, but variables are at the level of a tuple, not an attribute

{Q | 9 S COURSES, 9 T 2 Takes (S.cid = T.cid Æ Q.cid = S.cid Æ Q.exp-grade = T.exp-grade)}

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Limitations of the Relational Algebra / Calculus

Can’t do: Aggregate operations Recursive queries Complex (non-tabular) structures

Most of these are expressible in SQL, OQL, XQuery – using other special operators

Sometimes we even need the power of a Turing-complete programming language

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Summary

Can translate relational algebra into relational calculus DRC and TRC are slightly different syntaxes but

equivalent

Given syntactic restrictions that guarantee safety of DRC query, can translate back to relational algebra

These are the principles behind initial development of relational databases SQL is close to calculus; query plan is close to algebra Great example of theory leading to practice!