IST 601: Database Management

Relational Algebra
(Chapter 5)

Denis L. Nkweteyim

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 1

 Outline
●
Introduction
●
Relational Algebra
●
Introduction
●
Unary Operations
●
Set Operations
●
Join Operations
●
Division Operation
●
Aggregation and Grouping Operations

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 2

 Introduction
●
Any data model requires a data manipulation
mechanism (i.e., query language) to allow the underlying
data to be retrieved and updated
●
Two mathematical Query Languages form the basis for
“real” languages (e.g. SQL), and for implementation:
●
Relational Algebra
●
Relational Calculus
●
Both defined by Codd (1971)

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 3

 Introduction
●
Relational algebra
●
A (high-level) procedural language
●
More operational, very useful for representing execution plans
●
Can be used to tell the DBMS how to obtain data
●
Relational calculus
●
A declarative language
●
Lets users describe what they want, rather than how to compute it. (Non-operational, declarative.)
●
Can be used to formulate which data is to be obtained but not how
●
Relational algebra and relational calculus are formally equivalent to one another
●
Every expression in the algebra has an equivalent expression in the calculus (and vice versa)
●
Both the algebra and the calculus are formal, non-user-friendly languages
●
They have been used as the basis for other, higher-level Data Manipulation Languages (DMLs) for relational databases
●
They illustrate the basic operations required of any DML and serve as the standard of comparison for other relational languages
●
We only consider relational algebra

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 4

 Outline
●
Introduction
●
Relational Algebra
●
Introduction
●
Unary Operations
●
Set Operations
●
Join Operations
●
Division Operation
●
Aggregation and Grouping Operations

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 5

 Relational Algebra
●
A theoretical language
●
Both the operands and the results are relations
●
Original relation(s) unchanged
●
Output from one operation can become the input to another
operation
●
Hence, expressions can be nested in other expressions
●
Based on set theory
●
Allows for tuples, possibly from several relations, to be
manipulated in one statement without looping

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 6

 Relational Algebra
●
Codd originally proposed 5 fundamental operations
●
Fundamental operations
●
Selection, Projection, Cartesian product, Union, and Set difference
●
These perform most of the data retrieval operations
●
Other operations proposed later
●
Join, Intersection, Division and Renaming
●
These can be expressed in terms of the five basic operations
●
They are not essential, but are very useful

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 7

 Relational Algebra
●
Selection and Projection operations are unary
operations
●
They operate on one relation
●
The other fundamental operations are binary
●
They operate on pairs of relations
●
Other operations have been developed ever since

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 8

 Outline
●
Introduction
●
Relational Algebra
●
Introduction
●
Unary Operations
●
Set Operations
●
Join Operations
●
Division Operation
●
Aggregation and Grouping Operations

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 9

 Relational Algebra Operations
●
In examples that follow
●
R and S are two relations defined over the attribute sets A
and B
●
A = (a1, a2, . . . , aN)
●
B = (b1, b2, . . . , bM)

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 10

 Selection
●
σpredicate(R)
●
(Unary) Works on a single relation R and defines a relation
that contains only those tuples of R that satisfy the specified
condition (or predicate)
●
Schema of Selection Result
●
Identical to schema of input relation

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 11

 Selection

●
Example
●
List all staff with a salary
greater than £10000
●
σsalary > 10000(Staff)

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 12

 Projection
●
Πa1 …, an(R)
●
(Unary) Works on a single relation R and defines a relation
that contains a vertical subset of R, extracting the values of
specified attributes and eliminating duplicates
●
Schema of Projection Result
●
Contains exactly the fields in the projection list, with the same
names that they had in the input relation
●
Note
●
Projection operator eliminates duplicates!

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 13

 Projection

●
Example
●
Produce a list of salaries for all
staff, showing only the staffNo,
fName, IName, and salary details
●
ΠstaffNo, fName, IName, salary(Staff)

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 14

 Outline
●
Introduction
●
Relational Algebra
●
Introduction
●
Unary Operations
●
Set Operations
●
Join Operations
●
Division Operation
●
Aggregation and Grouping Operations

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 15

 Set Operations - Union, Intersection, Set-
Difference
●
Take two input relations, which must be union-
compatible, i.e., data from the same domain
●
Same number of fields
●
`Corresponding’ fields have the same type
●
Schema of Result
●
Identical to schema of input relations

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 16

 Set Operations
●
Union
●
RÈS
●
Defines a relation that contains all
the tuples of R, or S, or both R
and S
●
R and S must be union-
compatible
●
Duplicate tuples are eliminated

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 17

 Set Operations - Union
●
Example
●
List all cities where there is either a
branch office or a property for rent
●
Πcity(Branch) È Πcity(PropertyForRent)

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 18

 Set Difference
●
R–S
●
Defines a relation consisting of
the tuples that are in relation R,
but not in S
●
R and S must be union-
compatible

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 19

 Set Operations - Difference
●
Example
●
List all cities where there is a branch
office but no properties for rent
●
Πcity(Branch) - Πcity(PropertyForRent)

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 20

 Intersection
●
R∩S
●
Defines a relation consisting of
the set of all tuples that are in
both R and S
●
R and S must be union-
compatible

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 21

 Set Operations - Intersection
●
Example
●
List all cities where there is both a branch
office and at least one property for rent
●
Πcity(Branch) ∩ Πcity(PropertyForRent)

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 22

 Cartesian Product
●
RxS
●
Defines a relation that is the concatenation of every tuple of
relation R with every tuple of relation S
●
Resulting relation consists of all possible pairs of tuples
from the two relations
●
If one relation has I tuples and N attributes and the other has
J tuples and M attributes
●
Cartesian product relation will contain (I * J) tuples with (N + M)
attributes
●
If the two relations have attributes with the same name, prefix the
attribute names relation name to maintain the uniqueness of
attribute names within a relation
08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 23
 Cartesian Product

●
Example
●
List the names and comments of all clients who have viewed a
property for rent
●
Can start with Cartesian product, then select from rows
●
(ΠclientNo, fName, IName(Client)) x (ΠclientNo, propertyNo, comment(Viewing))
●
Results on following slide

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 24

 Cartesian Product
●
Note
●
Some of the results of cartesian
product are meaningless
●
Example
●
The first tuple contains different
clientNo values
●
To obtain the required list
●
Carry out a Selection operation
to extract those tuples where
Client.clientNo =
Viewing.clientNo
●
i.e.,
●
σClient.clientNo = Viewing. ClientNo
((ΠclientNo, fName, IName(Client)) x
(ΠclientNo, propertyNo, comment(Viewing)))
08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 25
 Select from the Cartesian Product
●
σClient.clientNo = Viewing. ClientNo ((ΠclientNo, fName, IName(Client)) x (ΠclientNo,
propertyNo, comment (Viewing)))

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 26

 Decomposing complex operations
●
Relational algebra operations can be very complex
●
Can decompose them into a series of smaller relational algebra operations and
give a name to the results of intermediate expressions
●
Example, from the previous cartesian product
●
σClient.clientNo = Viewing.ClientNo ((ΠclientNo, fName, Iname(Client)) x (ΠclientNo, propertyNo, comment(Viewing)))
●
TempViewing(clientNo, propertyNo, comment) ← ΠclientNo, propertyNo, comment(Viewing)
●
TempClient(clientNo, fName, lName) ← ΠclientNo, fName, Iname(Client)
●
Comment(clientNo, fName, lName, vclientNo, propertyNo, comment) ← TempClient x
TempViewing
●
Result ← σclientNo = vclientNo(Comment)

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 27

 Decomposing complex operations
●
Alternatively, use the Rename operation ρ (rho)
●
ρ gives a name to the result of a relational algebra
operation
●
Syntax
●
Either ρS(E) rename relation E as relation s, or
●
ρS(a1, a2, . . . , an)(E) Rename the attributes as well

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 28

 Outline
●
Introduction
●
Relational Algebra
●
Introduction
●
Unary Operations
●
Set Operations
●
Join Operations
●
Division Operation
●
Aggregation and Grouping Operations

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 29

 Join Operations
●
Typically, we want only combinations of the Cartesian product that
satisfy certain conditions
●
A Join operation can be used
●
Join
●
Combines two relations to form a new relation
●
Equivalent to performing a Selection operation over the Cartesian product
of the two operand relations
●
Several Join operations
●
Theta join, Equijoin (a particular type of Theta join), Natural join, Outer join,
Semijoin

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 30

 Theta Join (θ Join)
●
R F S
●
Defines a relation that contains tuples satisfying the predicate F from the
Cartesian product of R and S
●
Predicate F is of the form R.ai θ S.bi, where θ may be one of the comparison
operators (<, ≤, >, ≥, =, ≠)
●
Theta Join is equivalent to the following cartesian product
●
R F S = σF(R x S)
●
Degree of theta join
●
Same as degree of cartesian product
●
i.e., sum of the degrees of the operand relations R and S
●
Equijoin
●
Theta join in which the predicate F contains only equality (=)
08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 31
 Equijoin Example

●
Example
●
List the names and comments of all clients who have
viewed a property for rent
●
(ΠclientNo, fName, Iname(Client)) Client.clientNo = Viewing.clientNo
(ΠclientNo, propertyNo, comment(Viewing))
●
Or,
●
Results = TempClient Client.clientNo = Viewing.clientNo TempViewing

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 32

 Natural Join
●
R S
●
An Equijoin of R and S over all common attributes x (i.e.,
attributes with the same name)
●
One occurrence of each common attribute is eliminated from the
result

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 33

 Natural Join Example

●
Example
●
List the names and comments of all clients who have
viewed a property for rent
●
(ΠclientNo, fName, Iname(Client)) (ΠclientNo, propertyNo, comment(Viewing))
●
Or,
●
Results ← TempClient TempViewing

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 34

 Outer Join
●
Often in joining two relations, a tuple in one relation does not have a
matching tuple in the other relation
●
i.e., no matching value in the join attributes
●
But we may still want tuples from one (or both) of the relations to appear in
the result even when there are no matching values in the other relation
●
Example
●
Joining Student relation with Fees relation will only bring out students who have paid
some fees
●
We may want to also know students who have not paid any fees
●
Outer join preserves tuples that would have been lost by other types
of join

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 35

 Left Outer Join
●
R S
●
A join in which tuples from R that do not have matching
values in the common attributes of S are also included in the
result relation
●
Missing values in the second relation are set to null

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 36

●
Example, Produce a status report on property
viewings. (ΠpropertyNo, street, city(PropertyForRent)) (Viewing))
●
i.e., a relation consisting of the properties that
have been viewed with comments and those that
have not been viewed

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 37

 Right Outer Join and Full Outer Join
●
Right Outer join
●
Left (natural) Outer join keeps every tuple in the lefthand
relation in the result
●
Similarly, Right Outer join keeps every tuple in the right-hand
relation in the result
●
Missing values in the first relation are set to null
●
Full Outer join
●
Keeps all tuples in both relations, padding tuples with nulls
when no matching tuples are found

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 38

 Semijoin
●

●
Defines a relation that contains the tuples of R that
participate in the join of R with S satisfying the predicate F
●
Can be rewritten using Projection and Join operations
●
A is the set of all attributes for R

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 39

 Semijoin Example

●
Example
●
List complete details of all staff who work at
the branch in Glasgow

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 40

 Outline
●
Introduction
●
Relational Algebra
●
Introduction
●
Unary Operations
●
Set Operations
●
Join Operations
●
Division Operation
●
Aggregation and Grouping Operations

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 41

 Division Operation
●
See details on pages 177-178 of text

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 42

 Outline
●
Introduction
●
Relational Algebra
●
Introduction
●
Unary Operations
●
Set Operations
●
Join Operations
●
Division Operation
●
Aggregation and Grouping Operations

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 43

 Aggregation and Grouping Operations
●
Aggregation operations
●
AL (R)
●
Applies the aggregate function list, AL, to the relation R to
define a relation over the aggregate list
●
AL contains one or more (<aggregate_function>, <attribute>)
pairs
●
The main aggregation functions
●
COUNT, SUM, AVG, MIN, MAX

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 44

 ●
(a) How many properties cost more than
£350 per month to rent?

●
(b) Find the minimum, maximum, and
average staff salary

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 45

 Grouping Operation
●
GA AL (R)
●
Groups the tuples of relation R by the grouping attributes, GA
●
Then applies the aggregate function list AL to define a new
relation
●
AL contains one or more (<aggregate_function>, <attribute>) pairs.
●
The resulting relation contains the grouping attributes, GA, along
with the results of each of the aggregate functions

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 46

 ●
Find the number of staff working
in each branch and the sum of
their salaries
●
Steps
●
Group tuples according to
branchNo
●
Then use the aggregate functions
COUNT and SUM to produce the
required relation

08/01/25 Denis L. Nkweteyim@UB - IST601 (Database Management - Rel Algebra/Calculus) 47