Chapter 2 - The Relational Model

Author: Muhammad Hamiz Mohd Radzi
Edited By: Zuhri Arafah Binti Zulkifli

Author: Muhammad Hamiz Mohd Radzi Edited By: Zuhri Arafah Zulkifli
Chapter Outline
 Basic Concepts
 Keys
 Integrity Rules
 Data Dictionary and System Catalog
 Relationships within the Relational Database
 Data Redundancy Revisited
 Indexes
Chapter Objectives
 At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
 Describe tables and their characteristics
 Describe files and relations.
 Describe the super, candidate, primary, alternate and foreign keys
 Explain the entity and referential integrity
 Explain the no action, restrict, set to null, set default and cascade rules for reference
rows
 Define the one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many, and associative relationships

Basic Concepts
 The relational model was first proposed by E. F. Codd in his seminal paper ‘A
relational model of data for large shared data banks’ (Codd, 1970).
 Data appears to be stored in what we have been referring to as simple,

linear files.
 Relational databases are based on mathematics.
 A relational database is a collection of relations that, as a group, contain

the data that describes a particular business environment.
 The relational model’s objectives were specified as follows:
 To allow a high degree of data independence.
 To provide substantial grounds for dealing with data semantics,

consistency, and redundancy problems.
 To enable the expansion of set-oriented data manipulation

languages.
 A relation is a table with columns and rows.
 Attribute is a named column of a relation.

Records and Files
 Previously, data is stored in different files.
 File is the entire structure of records and fields.
 Files are vulnerable to changes, often not shared which could lead
to data redundancy and hard to retrieved if there are damages to
the files.
 Records can be defined as rows of a file and Field is the column

representing the fact.
 Record type - a structural description of each and every record in the file
 Record occurrence / Record instance - a specific record of the

salesperson file
 Row = record (files) = tuple (relation)
 Column = field (files) = attribute (relation).

Files vs Relations
FILES RELATIONS
Meaning of data WILL BE Meaning of data will NOT be
AFFECTED if the column is affected if the column is rearranged
rearranged to another order to another order
The rows of data CANNOT be The rows of data CAN be

rearranged to any order rearranged to any order
Every row/column position (a cell) Every row/column position (a cell)

can have a single OR multiple can have only a single value
value.
Redundancy may happen in a file Redundancy will not happen in a

relation
Tables and Their Characteristics

Relational model enables us to view data logically rather than physically
Table: two-dimensional structure composed of rows and columns
Contains group of related entities --> an entity set
Terms entity set and table are often used interchangeably.
 Table also called a relation because the relational model’s creator, Codd,
used the term relation as a synonym for table
Think of a table as a persistent relation:
A relation whose contents can be permanently saved for future use
Student table with attributes

Relational Keys
 As stated previously, there are no duplicate tuples within a relation.
 Therefore, we need to be able to identify one or more attributes (called

relational keys) that uniquely identifies each tuple in a relation.
 The important keys in a relation are:
 Superkey
 Candidate Key
 Primary Key
 Alternate Key
 Foreign Key
 Superkey is an attribute, or set of attributes, that uniquely identifies

a tuple within a relation.
 Candidate key is a minimal superkey with no redundancy.
 Primary key is the candidate key that is selected to identify

uniquely within the key relation.
SUPERKEY
CANDIDATE
KEY
PRIMARY KEY
vehicleID carPlateNo engineID carName

101 WTY 1234 9999876 Proton Kembara
102 WXY 4567 5644321 Perodua Alza
103 CDA 3389 6667889 Proton Kembara
104 MCD 1745 1277653 Honda City
Superkey:
 vehicleID  vehicleID,  vehicleID, carPlateNo, engineID

 carPlateNo carPlateNo  vehicleID, carPlateNo, carName
 engineID  vehicleID, engineID  vehicleID, engineID, carName
 vehicleID, carName  carPlateNo, engineID, carName
 carPlateNo,  vehicleID, carPlateNo, engineID,
engineID carName
 carPlateNo,
carName
 engineID, carName

104 MCD 1745 1277653 Honda City
Candidate Key:
 vehicleID  vehicleID,  vehicleID, carPlateNo,

carPlateNo engineID
 carPlateNo
 engineID  vehicleID, engineID
 carPlateNo,
engineID
Primary Key: vehicleID


104 MCD 1745 1277653 Honda City
Alternate Key:
 carPlateNo  vehicleID,  vehicleID, carPlateNo,

carPlateNo engineID
 engineID
 vehicleID, engineID
 carPlateNo,
engineID
 Alternate Key is a candidate key that was not chosen to be the primary
key of the relation.
 Foreign Key is an attribute or group of attributes that serves as the

primary key of one relation and also appears in another relation
(foreign key in this relation).
Integrity Rules
 Integrity constraints is to make sure that the data is accurate.
 Inaccurate of data could leave the whole database system

unreliable and can affect the company from running smoothly.
 There are two important integrity rules, which are constraints or

restrictions that apply to all instances of the database.
 The two principal rules for the relational model are known as entity
integrity and referential integrity.
 Null value represents a value for an attribute that is currently

unknown or is not applicable for this tuple.
Entity Integrity
 The first integrity rule applies to the primary keys of base relations.
 Entity integrity can be defined as; in a base relation, no attribute of a primary

key can be null.
 For example, in a STUDENT relation, studentID is considered as primary

key.
 studentID cannot be null as it is the determinant for the other attributes like
studentName, studentAddress etc.
 Hence, a primary key cannot be null and this kind of rule is called entity
integrity.
Referential Integrity
 The second integrity rule applies to foreign keys.
 Revolves around the circumstance of trying to refer to data in one relation in

the database, based on values in another relation.
 By definition, referential integrity means that if a foreign key exists in a

relation, either the foreign key value must match a primary key value of
some tuple in its home relation or the foreign key value must be wholly null.
 For example, branchNo in the Staff relation is a foreign key targeting the
branchNo attribute in the home relation, Branch.
Insert, Delete, Update for Referential

Integrity
PARENT TABLE CHILD TABLE
INSERT No Problem Cannot be done if there is no

match primary key in parent’s
table
DELETE Cannot be done if there is a No Problem

match foreign key in child’s table
UPDATE Cannot be done if there is a Cannot be done if there is no

match foreign key in child’s table match existing primary key in
parent’s table
Delete & Update Actions for Reference

Rows
 Early relational DBMSs did not provide any control mechanisms for
referential integrity.
 Modern relational DBMSs provide sophisticated control mechanisms for

referential integrity:
 Delete rules
 Insert rules
 Update rules
 The ON DELETE and ON UPDATE action associated with each

foreign key in database is one of "NO ACTION", "RESTRICT", "SET
NULL", "SET DEFAULT" or "CASCADE".
 If an action is not explicitly specified, it defaults to "NO ACTION".
 NO ACTION: Configuring "NO ACTION" means just that: when a

parent key is modified or deleted from the database, no special
action is taken.
 RESTRICT: The "RESTRICT" action means that the application is

prohibited from deleting (for ON DELETE RESTRICT) or modifying
(for ON UPDATE RESTRICT) a parent key when there exists one or
more child keys mapped to it.
 SET NULL: If the configured action is "SET NULL", then when a parent
key is deleted (for ON DELETE SET NULL) or modified (for ON UPDATE
SET NULL), the child key columns of all rows in the child table that
mapped to the parent key are set to contain SQL NULL values.
 SET DEFAULT: The "SET DEFAULT" actions are similar to "SET NULL",
except that each of the child key columns is set to contain the columns
default value instead of NULL.
 CASCADE: A "CASCADE" action propagates the delete or update

operation on the parent key to each dependent child key.
 For an "ON DELETE CASCADE" action, this means that each row in the
child table that was associated with the deleted parent row is also
deleted.
 For an "ON UPDATE CASCADE" action, it means that the values stored
in each dependent child key are modified to match the new parent key
values.
The Data Dictionary and System Catalog

Data dictionary
Used to provide detailed accounting of all tables found within the

user/designer-created database
Contains (at least) all the attribute names and characteristics for
each table in the system
Contains metadata—data about data
Sometimes described as “the database designer’s database”

because it records the design decisions about tables and their
structures
A Sample Data Dictionary
The System Catalog
System catalog
Contains metadata
Detailed system data dictionary that describes all objects within the
database
Terms “system catalog” and “data dictionary” are often used
interchangeably
Can be queried just like any user/designer-created table
Relationships
 There are binary and ternary relationships in DBMS.
 Binary means there are 2 entities connected to each other and ternary
means 3 entities connected to each other.
 These relationships can be divided into
 One-to-one relationship
 One-to-many relationship
 Many-to-many relationship
Binary One-to-one Relationship

Binary One-to-many Relationship

Binary Many-to-many Relationship
*Associative Entity is needed to solve many-to-

many relationship. (also known as Bridge
Entity)
The ERD’s 1:M Relationship between COURSE and CLASS

Ternary Relationship
Unary one-to-one Relationship

Unary one-to-many Relationship

Unary Many-to-many Relationship

Unary Relationship
Three Types of Relationship Degrees

Data Redundancy Revisited

Relational database facilitates control of data redundancies
through use of foreign keys
To be controlled except the following circumstances

Data redundancy must be increased to make the database serve crucial
information purposes
Exists to preserve the historical accuracy of the data

Index
Orderly arrangement to logically access rows in a table
Index key: Index’s reference point that leads to data location

identified by the key
Unique index: Index key can have only one pointer value
associated with it
Each index is associated with only one table

References
Database Systems: Design, Implementation, & Management, 7th Edition, Rob &
Coronel
Database Systems: A Practical Approach to Design, Implementation, and

Management, Thomas Connolly and Carolyn Begg, 5th Edition, 2010, Pearson.
Fundamental of Database Management Systems, Mark L. G., 2nd Edition,

2012, John Wiley.

Chapter 2 - The Relational Model

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Chapter 2 - The Relational Model

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Author: Muhammad Hamiz Mohd Radzi

Edited By: Zuhri Arafah Binti Zulkifli

 Data Dictionary and System Catalog

 Relationships within the Relational Database

 Data Redundancy Revisited

 At the end of this lesson, you should be able to:

 Describe tables and their characteristics

 Describe files and relations.

 Describe the super, candidate, primary, alternate and foreign keys

 Explain the entity and referential integrity

 Define the one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-many, and associative relationships

 Data appears to be stored in what we have been referring to as simple,

 Relational databases are based on mathematics.

 A relational database is a collection of relations that, as a group, contain

 The relational model’s objectives were specified as follows:

 To allow a high degree of data independence.

 To provide substantial grounds for dealing with data semantics,

 To enable the expansion of set-oriented data manipulation

 A relation is a table with columns and rows.

 Attribute is a named column of a relation.

Records and Files

 Previously, data is stored in different files.

 File is the entire structure of records and fields.

 Records can be defined as rows of a file and Field is the column

 Record occurrence / Record instance - a specific record of the

 Row = record (files) = tuple (relation)

 Column = field (files) = attribute (relation).

The rows of data CANNOT be The rows of data CAN be

Every row/column position (a cell) Every row/column position (a cell)

Redundancy may happen in a file Redundancy will not happen in a

Tables and Their Characteristics

Student table with attributes

 As stated previously, there are no duplicate tuples within a relation.

 Therefore, we need to be able to identify one or more attributes (called

 The important keys in a relation are:

 Superkey is an attribute, or set of attributes, that uniquely identifies

 Candidate key is a minimal superkey with no redundancy.

 Primary key is the candidate key that is selected to identify

vehicleID carPlateNo engineID carName

 vehicleID  vehicleID,  vehicleID, carPlateNo, engineID

vehicleID carPlateNo engineID carName

 vehicleID  vehicleID,  vehicleID, carPlateNo,

Primary Key: vehicleID

vehicleID carPlateNo engineID carName

 carPlateNo  vehicleID,  vehicleID, carPlateNo,

 Foreign Key is an attribute or group of attributes that serves as the

 Inaccurate of data could leave the whole database system

 There are two important integrity rules, which are constraints or

 Null value represents a value for an attribute that is currently

 Entity integrity can be defined as; in a base relation, no attribute of a primary

 For example, in a STUDENT relation, studentID is considered as primary

 Revolves around the circumstance of trying to refer to data in one relation in

 By definition, referential integrity means that if a foreign key exists in a

Insert, Delete, Update for Referential

INSERT No Problem Cannot be done if there is no

DELETE Cannot be done if there is a No Problem

UPDATE Cannot be done if there is a Cannot be done if there is no

Delete & Update Actions for Reference

 Modern relational DBMSs provide sophisticated control mechanisms for

 The ON DELETE and ON UPDATE action associated with each

 If an action is not explicitly specified, it defaults to "NO ACTION".

 NO ACTION: Configuring "NO ACTION" means just that: when a

 RESTRICT: The "RESTRICT" action means that the application is

 CASCADE: A "CASCADE" action propagates the delete or update