Week 4September 19.ppt

Week 4September 19 Relational Data Model Views Relational Model Objectives A degree of data independence Address data semantic, consistency and redundancy problems Set-oriented data manipulation language Structured Query Language (SQL) Domain of an Attribute Set of allowable values for one or more attributes Properties of Relations Distinct (i.e., unique) relation name Each cell contains exactly one atomic (single) value No repeating groups Distinct attribute name The values of an attribute come from the same domain Order of attributes has no significance Each tuple is distinct (i.e., unique) No duplicate tuples Order of tuples has no significance Unique Identification of a Relation Identifying a Tuple SuperkeyAn attribute or a set of attributes that uniquely identifies a tuple within a relation Candidate keyA super key such that no proper subset is a superkey within the relation Uniquely identifies the tuple (uniqueness) Contains no unique subset (irreducibility) Primary keyThe candidate key that is selected to identify tuples uniquely within a relation Should remain constant over the life of the tuple Most efficient way of identifying a tuple Finding the Primary Key Keys Selecting a Key Criteria An efficient way of identifying an entity The attribute (value) remains constant over the life of the entity Never changes Identifying a Tuple Foreign keyAn attribute or set of attributes within one relation that matches the candidate key of some (possibly the same) relation Foreign Key Relational Integrity Constraints placed on the set of values allowed for the attributes of a relation. Entity integrity No attribute of a primary key can be null (every tuple must be uniquely identified) Referential integrity If a foreign key exists in a relation, either the foreign key value must match a candidate key value of some tuple in its home relation, or the foreign key value must be wholly null (i.e., no key exists in the home relation) General constraints (reflect bus