Relational Data Model

●
Relations are stored in tables
Relational Databases – e.g. Sponsor(Senator,Bill)
Sponsor Atrributes
CPSC 315 – Programming
Senator Bill
Studio
Smith Tax
Fall 2010
Jones Defense
Project 1, Lecture 2 Smith Defense
Tuples

Slides adapted from those used by Adams Commerc

Jeffrey Ullman, via Jennifer Welch e

Converting from Entity-

Schemas Relationship Model
●
A relation schema is a relation name ●
ER: Entity set -> relation
and a list of attributes – ER Attributes become Relational attributes
– Sponsor(Senator,Bill) ●
ER: Relationship -> relation
●
A database is a collection of relations – Keys of connected ER entity sets become
●
A database schema is the set of all Relational attributes
the relation schemas in the database
 ER Entity Sets Relations
●
Senator(Name,Party,State,Years)
Name ●
Bill(Name,Text)
Party
Senator Organization
●
Lobbyist(Name,Organization)
State Lobbyist

Name
Years

Bill

Name Text

ER Relationships Relations
●
Sponsored(Senator,Bill)
Name
●
Wrote(Bill,Lobbyist)
Contributed
●
Contributed(Senator,Lobbyist)
Party Organization
Senator

State Lobbyist
●
Remember, each of these is expressed as a
table (with the columns given by the
Years Sponsored
Name “parameters”)
Wrote ●
Notice that columns can refer to “bigger”
Bill
items, with even more attributes

Name Text
 Combining Relations Combining Relations
●
Relations can sometimes be combined. ●
Example (many-to-one): (Good)
– Person(Name, Birthdate, Height, Weight, Eye
●
Assume a “base” entity set with its Color, Hair Color)
relation. – BornIn(Person,Town)
●
If there is a many-to-one relation, that – Person(Name, Birthdate, Height, Weight, Eye
can be combined with the base entity Color, Hair Color, Town)
set. ●
Example(many-to-many): (Bad)
– Senator(Name, Party, State, Years)
●
Should not combine many-to-many – Sponsored(Senator, Bill)
– Redundancy – each of the many stored – Senator(Name, Party, State, Years, Bill)

Weak Entity Sets Weak Entity Set Example

●
The relation for a weak entity set must
contain all the elements of its key First
Name
Last
Name
Number
Note arrrow:
●
Supporting relationships are usually indicates many
to one.
redundant (unless possibly multi-way) Baseball Player Position

Birthdate

Plays
Team
Nationality Salary On

City Name
 Weak Entity Set Example
●
Team(Name, City)
●
Baseball Player(Number, TeamName,
First Name, Last Name, Position,
Birthdate, Nationality, Salary)
Weak Entity Set Example
●
Team(Name, City)
●
Baseball Player(Number, TeamName,
First Name, Last Name, Position,
Birthdate, Nationality, Salary)
●
Note that we don’t need
PlaysOn(BaseballPlayer.Number,
BaseballPlayer.TeamName,
Team.Name)
Redundant (same)
Weak Entity Set Example
●
Team(Name, City)
●
Baseball Player(Number, TeamName,
First Name, Last Name, Position,
Birthdate, Nationality, Salary)
●
Note that we don’t need
PlaysOn(BaseballPlayer.Number,
BaseballPlayer.TeamName,
Team.Name)
Weak Entity Set Example
●
Team(Name, City)
●
Baseball Player(Number, TeamName,
First Name, Last Name, Position,
Birthdate, Nationality, Salary)
●
Note that we don’t need
PlaysOn(BaseballPlayer.Number,
BaseballPlayer.Team.Name)
 Subclasses
Weak Entity Set Example Different Options
●
Team(Name, City) ●
Different ways to represent subclasses
●
Baseball Player(Number, TeamName, Name

First Name, Last Name, Position, Elected Official

Party
Birthdate, Nationality, Salary)
●
Note that we don’t need isa

PlaysOn(BaseballPlayer.Number, U.S.
District
BaseballPlayer.Team.Name) Representative

Already
Included

Object-Oriented Style Entity-Relationship Style

●
One relation for each subset, including ●
One relation for each subclass
all “inherited” attributes (including key)
Elected Official Elected Official
Name Party U.S. Representative Name Party U.S. Representative
Chet Edwards Democrat Name Party District Chet Edwards Democrat Name District
Chet Democrat 17 Chet Edwards 17
John Cornyn Republican Edwards John Cornyn Republican
Ron Paul 14
John Adams Federalist Ron Paul Republican 14 John Adams Federalist
Ron Paul Republican Ron Paul Republican
 Using Nulls Style Keys
●
One relation total, with nulls for unknown ●
A Key “functionally determines” all
information
U.S. Representative
other attributes of the relation
Name Party District – Given a relation and a key, there is only
Chet Democrat 17 one tuple that corresponds to it
● Edwards
● John Cornyn Republican NULL
●
There are subtle differences from an E-
John Adams Federalist NULL
Ron Paul Republican 14
R key, which we won’t go into.

●
Can save space, but problematic if multiple
subclasses or lots of NULLs