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Relational Algebra
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Outline

• Relational Algebra
• Unary Relational Operations
• Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
• Binary Relational Operations
• Additional Relational Operations
• Examples of Queries in Relational Algebra
• Relational Calculus
• Tuple Relational Calculus
• Domain Relational Calculus

• Ref: Chapter 8

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Relational Algebra Overview

• Relational algebra is the basic set of operations for the relational

model
• These operations enable a user to specify basic retrieval
requests (or queries)
• The result of an operation is a new relation, which may have been
formed from one or more input relations
• This property makes the algebra “closed” (all objects in relational
algebra are relations)

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Relational Algebra Overview

• The algebra operations thus produce new relations

• These can be further manipulated using operations of the same
algebra
• A sequence of relational algebra operations forms a relational
algebra expression
• The result of a relational algebra expression is also a
relation that represents the result of a database query (or
retrieval request)

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Relational Algebra Overview

• Relational Algebra consists of several groups of operations

• Unary Relational Operations
• SELECT (symbol:  (sigma))
• PROJECT (symbol: (pi))
• RENAME (symbol:  (rho))
• Relational Algebra Operations From Set Theory
• UNION (  ), INTERSECTION (), DIFFERENCE (or MINUS, – )
• CARTESIAN PRODUCT ( x )
• Binary Relational Operations
• JOIN (several variations of JOIN exist)
• DIVISION
• Additional Relational Operations
• OUTER JOINS, OUTER UNION
• AGGREGATE FUNCTIONS (These compute summary of information: for example, SUM, COUNT,
AVG, MIN, MAX)

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• All examples discussed below refer

to the COMPANY database shown
here.

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Unary Relational Operations: SELECT

• The SELECT operation (denoted by  (sigma)) is used to select a subset of the

tuples from a relation based on a selection condition.
• The selection condition acts as a filter
• Keeps only those tuples that satisfy the qualifying condition
• Tuples satisfying the condition are selected whereas the other tuples
are discarded (filtered out)
• Examples:
• Select the EMPLOYEE tuples whose department number is 4:
 DNO = 4 (EMPLOYEE)
• Select the employee tuples whose salary is greater than $30,000:
 SALARY > 30,000 (EMPLOYEE)

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• In general, the select operation is denoted by

 <selection condition>(R)
where
• the symbol  (sigma) is used to denote the select operator
• the selection condition is a Boolean (conditional) expression
specified on the attributes of relation R
• tuples that make the condition true are selected
• appear in the result of the operation
• tuples that make the condition false are filtered out
• discarded from the result of the operation

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• SELECT Operation Properties

• The SELECT operation  <selection condition>(R) produces a relation S that has the
same schema (same attributes) as R
• SELECT  is commutative:
•  <condition1>( < condition2> (R)) =  <condition2> ( < condition1> (R))
• Because of commutativity property, a cascade (sequence) of SELECT operations
may be applied in any order:
• <cond1>(<cond2> (<cond3> (R)) = <cond2> (<cond3> (<cond1> ( R)))
• A cascade of SELECT operations may be replaced by a single selection with a
conjunction of all the conditions:
• <cond1>(< cond2> (<cond3>(R)) =  <cond1> AND < cond2> AND < cond3>(R)))
• The number of tuples in the result of a SELECT is less than (or equal to) the
number of tuples in the input relation R

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Unary Relational Operations: PROJECT

• PROJECT Operation is denoted by (pi)

• This operation keeps certain columns (attributes) from a relation
and discards the other columns.
• PROJECT creates a vertical partitioning
• The list of specified columns (attributes) is kept in each tuple
• The other attributes in each tuple are discarded
• Example: To list each employee’s first and last name and salary,
the following is used:
LNAME, FNAME,SALARY(EMPLOYEE)

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• The general form of the project operation is:

<attribute list>(R)
•  (pi) is the symbol used to represent the project operation
• <attribute list> is the desired list of attributes from relation R.
• The project operation removes any duplicate tuples
• This is because the result of the project operation must be a set of
tuples
• Mathematical sets do not allow duplicate elements.

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• PROJECT Operation Properties

• The number of tuples in the result of projection <list>(R) is always
less or equal to the number of tuples in R
• If the list of attributes includes a key of R, then the number of tuples in
the result of PROJECT is equal to the number of tuples in R
• PROJECT is not commutative
•  <list1> ( <list2> (R) ) =  <list1> (R) as long as <list2> contains the attributes
in <list1>

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Relational Algebra Expressions

• We may want to apply several relational algebra operations one

after the other
• Either we can write the operations as a single relational algebra
expression by nesting the operations, or
• We can apply one operation at a time and create intermediate
result relations.
• In the latter case, we must give names to the relations that hold
the intermediate results.

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• To retrieve the first name, last name, and salary of all employees
who work in department number 5, we must apply a select and a
project operation
• We can write a single relational algebra expression as follows:
•FNAME, LNAME, SALARY( DNO=5(EMPLOYEE))
• OR We can explicitly show the sequence of operations, giving a
name to each intermediate relation:
• DEP5_EMPS   DNO=5(EMPLOYEE)
• RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, SALARY (DEP5_EMPS)

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Unary Relational Operations: RENAME

• The RENAME operator is denoted by  (rho)

• In some cases, we may want to rename the attributes of a relation
or the relation name or both
• Useful when a query requires multiple operations
• Necessary in some cases (see JOIN operation later)

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• The general RENAME operation  can be expressed by any of the

following forms:
• S (B1, B2, …, Bn )(R) changes both:
• the relation name to S, and
• the column (attribute) names to B1, B2, …..Bn
• S(R) changes:
• the relation name only to S
• (B1, B2, …, Bn )(R) changes:
• the column (attribute) names only to B1, B2, …..Bn

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Relational Algebra Operations from Set Theory: UNION

• UNION Operation
• Binary operation, denoted by 
• The result of R  S, is a relation that includes all tuples that are
either in R or in S or in both R and S
• Duplicate tuples are eliminated
• The two operand relations R and S must be “type compatible” (or
UNION compatible)
• R and S must have same number of attributes
• Each pair of corresponding attributes must be type compatible (have
same or compatible domains)

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• Example:
• To retrieve the social security numbers of all employees who either
work in department 5 (RESULT1 below) or directly supervise an employee
who works in department 5 (RESULT2 below)
• We can use the UNION operation as follows:
DEP5_EMPS  DNO=5 (EMPLOYEE)
RESULT1   SSN(DEP5_EMPS)
RESULT2(SSN)  SUPERSSN(DEP5_EMPS)
RESULT  RESULT1  RESULT2
• The union operation produces the tuples that are in either RESULT1 or
RESULT2 or both

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• Figure 8.3 Result of the UNION operation RESULT ← RESULT1

RESULT2.

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Relational Algebra Operations from Set Theory

• Type Compatibility of operands is required for the binary set

operation UNION , (also for INTERSECTION , and SET
DIFFERENCE –)
• R1(A1, A2, ..., An) and R2(B1, B2, ..., Bn) are type compatible if:
• they have the same number of attributes, and
• the domains of corresponding attributes are type compatible (i.e.
dom(Ai)=dom(Bi) for i=1, 2, ..., n).
• The resulting relation for R1R2 (also for R1R2, or R1 – R2) has
the same attribute names as the first operand relation R1 (by
convention)

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Relational Algebra Operations from Set Theory: INTERSECTION

• INTERSECTION is denoted by 
• The result of the operation R  S, is a relation that includes all
tuples that are in both R and S
• The attribute names in the result will be the same as the attribute
names in R
• The two operand relations R and S must be “type compatible”

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Relational Algebra Operations from Set Theory: SET

DIFFERENCE
• SET DIFFERENCE (also called MINUS or EXCEPT) is denoted by –
• The result of R – S, is a relation that includes all tuples that are in
R but not in S
• The attribute names in the result will be the same as the attribute
names in R
• The two operand relations R and S must be “type compatible”

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Some properties of UNION, INTERSECT, and DIFFERENCE

• Notice that both union and intersection are commutative

operations; that is
• R  S = S  R, and R  S = S  R
• Both union and intersection can be treated as n-ary operations
applicable to any number of relations as both are associative
operations; that is
• R  (S  T) = (R  S)  T
• (R  S)  T = R  (S  T)
• The minus operation is not commutative; that is, in general
• R–S≠S–R

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Relational Algebra Operations from Set Theory: CARTESIAN

PRODUCT
• CARTESIAN (or CROSS) PRODUCT Operation
• This operation is used to combine tuples from two relations in a
combinatorial fashion.
• Denoted by R(A1, A2, . . ., An) x S(B1, B2, . . ., Bm)
• Result is a relation Q with degree n + m attributes:
• Q(A1, A2, . . ., An, B1, B2, . . ., Bm), in that order.
• The resulting relation state has one tuple for each combination of
tuples—one from R and one from S.
• Hence, if R has nR tuples (denoted as |R| = nR ), and S has nS tuples,
then R x S will have nR * nS tuples.
• The two operands do NOT have to be "type compatible”

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• Generally, CROSS PRODUCT is not a meaningful operation

• Can become meaningful when followed by other operations
• Example (not meaningful):
• FEMALE_EMPS   SEX=’F’(EMPLOYEE)
• EMPNAMES   FNAME, LNAME, SSN (FEMALE_EMPS)
• EMP_DEPENDENTS  EMPNAMES x DEPENDENT
• EMP_DEPENDENTS will contain every combination of EMPNAMES
and DEPENDENT
• whether or not they are actually related

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• To keep only combinations where the DEPENDENT is related to

the EMPLOYEE, we add a SELECT operation as follows
• Example (meaningful):
• FEMALE_EMPS   SEX=’F’(EMPLOYEE)
• EMPNAMES   FNAME, LNAME, SSN (FEMALE_EMPS)
• EMP_DEPENDENTS  EMPNAMES x DEPENDENT
• ACTUAL_DEPS   SSN=ESSN(EMP_DEPENDENTS)
• RESULT   FNAME, LNAME, DEPENDENT_NAME (ACTUAL_DEPS)
• RESULT will now contain the name of female employees and their
dependents

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Binary Relational Operations: JOIN

• JOIN Operation (denoted by ⋈ )

• The sequence of CARTESIAN PRODECT followed by SELECT is used quite
commonly to identify and select related tuples from two relations
• A special operation, called JOIN combines this sequence into a single
operation
• This operation is very important for any relational database with more than
a single relation, because it allows us combine related tuples from various
relations
• The general form of a join operation on two relations R(A1, A2, ..., An) and
S(B1, B2, ..., Bm) is:
R ⋈ <join condition>S
• where R and S can be any relations that result from general relational
algebra expressions.

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• Example: Suppose that we want to retrieve the name of the manager of each
department.
• To get the manager’s name, we need to combine each DEPARTMENT tuple with the
EMPLOYEE tuple whose SSN value matches the MGRSSN value in the department tuple.
• We do this by using the join ⋈ operation.
• DEPT_MGR  DEPARTMENT ⋈MGRSSN=SSN EMPLOYEE
• MGRSSN=SSN is the join condition
• Combines each department record with the employee who manages the department
• The join condition can also be specified as DEPARTMENT.MGRSSN= EMPLOYEE.SSN

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Some properties of JOIN

• Consider the following JOIN operation:

• R(A1, A2, ..., An) ⋈ R.Ai=S.Bj S(B1, B2, ..., Bm)
• Result is a relation Q with degree n + m attributes:
• Q(A1, A2, ..., An, B1, B2, ..., Bm), in that order.
• The resulting relation state has one tuple for each combination of
tuples—r from R and s from S, but only if they satisfy the join
condition r[Ai]=s[Bj]
• Hence, if R has nR tuples, and S has nS tuples, then the join result will
generally have less than nR * nS tuples.
• Only related tuples (based on the join condition) will appear in the
result

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• The general case of JOIN operation is called a Theta-join: R ⋈ theta S

• The join condition is called theta
• Theta can be any general boolean expression on the attributes of
R and S; for example:
• R.Ai < S.Bj AND (R.Ak = S.Bl OR R.Ap < S.Bq)
• Most join conditions involve one or more equality conditions
“AND”ed together; for example:
• R.Ai = S.Bj AND R.Ak = S.Bl AND R.Ap = S.Bq

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Binary Relational Operations: EQUIJOIN

• EQUIJOIN Operation
• The most common use of join involves join conditions with
equality comparisons only
• Such a join, where the only comparison operator used is =, is
called an EQUIJOIN.
• In the result of an EQUIJOIN we always have one or more pairs of
attributes (whose names need not be identical) that have identical
values in every tuple.
• The JOIN seen in the previous example was an EQUIJOIN.

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Binary Relational Operations: NATURAL JOIN Operation

• NATURAL JOIN Operation

• Another variation of JOIN called NATURAL JOIN — denoted by * —
was created to get rid of the second (superfluous) attribute in an
EQUIJOIN condition.
• because one of each pair of attributes with identical values is
superfluous
• The standard definition of natural join requires that the two join
attributes, or each pair of corresponding join attributes, have
the same name in both relations
• If this is not the case, a renaming operation is applied first.

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• Example: To apply a natural join on the DNUMBER attributes of DEPARTMENT

and DEPT_LOCATIONS, it is sufficient to write:
• DEPT_LOCS  DEPARTMENT * DEPT_LOCATIONS
• Only attribute with the same name is DNUMBER
• An implicit join condition is created based on this attribute:
DEPARTMENT.DNUMBER=DEPT_LOCATIONS.DNUMBER

• Another example: Q  R(A,B,C,D) * S(C,D,E)

• The implicit join condition includes each pair of attributes with the same
name, “AND”ed together:
• R.C = S.C AND R.D = S.D
• Result keeps only one attribute of each such pair:
• Q(A,B,C,D,E)

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Complete Set of Relational Operations

• The set of operations including SELECT , PROJECT  , UNION ,

INTERSECTION , DIFFERENCE  , RENAME , and CARTESIAN
PRODUCT X is called a complete set because any other relational
algebra expression can be expressed by a combination of these
five operations.
• For example:
• R  S = (R  S ) – ((R  S)  (S  R))
• R ⋈<join condition>S =  <join condition> (R X S)

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Binary Relational Operations: DIVISION

• DIVISION Operation
• The division operation is applied to two relations
• R(Z)  S(X), where X subset Z. Let Y = Z - X (and hence Z = X  Y); that
is, let Y be the set of attributes of R that are not attributes of S.
• The result of DIVISION is a relation T(Y) that includes a tuple t if
tuples tR appear in R with tR [Y] = t, and with
• tR [X] = ts for every tuple ts in S.
• For a tuple t to appear in the result T of the DIVISION, the values in t
must appear in R in combination with every tuple in S.

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• Example

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Query Tree Notation

• Query Tree
• An internal data structure to represent a query
• Standard technique for estimating the work involved in executing
the query, the generation of intermediate results, and the
optimization of execution
• Nodes stand for operations like selection, projection, join, renaming,
division, ….
• Leaf nodes represent base relations
• A tree gives a good visual feel of the complexity of the query and the
operations involved
• Algebraic Query Optimization consists of rewriting the query or
modifying the query tree into an equivalent tree.

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• Example

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Additional Relational Operations: Aggregate Functions and

Grouping
• A type of request that cannot be expressed in the basic relational
algebra is to specify mathematical aggregate functions on
collections of values from the database.
• Examples of such functions include retrieving the average or total
salary of all employees or the total number of employee tuples.
• These functions are used in simple statistical queries that
summarize information from the database tuples.
• Common functions applied to collections of numeric values
include
• SUM, AVERAGE, MAXIMUM, and MINIMUM.
• The COUNT function is used for counting tuples or values.

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• Use of the Aggregate Functional operation

• (EMPLOYEE) retrieves the maximum salary value from the
MAX Salary
EMPLOYEE relation
• MIN Salary (EMPLOYEE) retrieves the minimum Salary value from the
EMPLOYEE relation
• SUM Salary (EMPLOYEE) retrieves the sum of the Salary from the
EMPLOYEE relation
• COUNT SSN, AVERAGE Salary (EMPLOYEE) computes the count (number) of
employees and their average salary
• Note: count just counts the number of rows, without removing
duplicates

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Using Grouping with Aggregation

• The previous examples all summarized one or more attributes for a set
of tuples
• Maximum Salary or Count (number of) SSN
• Grouping can be combined with Aggregate Functions
• Example: For each department, retrieve the DNO, COUNT SSN, and
AVERAGE SALARY
• A variation of aggregate operation allows this:
• Grouping attribute placed to left of symbol
• Aggregate functions to right of symbol
• DNO ℱCOUNT SSN, AVERAGE Salary (EMPLOYEE)

• Above operation groups employees by DNO (department number) and

computes the count of employees and average salary per department

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• Example
a.  R(Dno, No_of_employees, Average_sal)
(Dno COUNT Ssn, AVERAGE Salary (EMPLOYEE)).
b. Dno Salary(EMPLOYEE).
c. COUNT Ssn, AVERAGE Salary(EMPLOYEE).

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• Recursive Closure Operations

• Another type of operation that, in general, cannot be
specified in the basic original relational algebra is
recursive closure.
• This operation is applied to a recursive relationship.
• An example of a recursive operation is to retrieve all
SUPERVISEES of an EMPLOYEE e at all levels — that is, all
EMPLOYEE e’ directly supervised by e; all employees e’’
directly supervised by each employee e’; all employees e’’’
directly supervised by each employee e’’; and so on.

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Additional Relational Operations

• The OUTER JOIN Operation

• In NATURAL JOIN and EQUIJOIN, tuples without a matching (or
related) tuple are eliminated from the join result
• Tuples with null in the join attributes are also eliminated
• This amounts to loss of information.
• A set of operations, called OUTER joins, can be used when we want
to keep all the tuples in R, or all those in S, or all those in both
relations in the result of the join, regardless of whether or not they
have matching tuples in the other relation.

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• The left outer join operation keeps every tuple in the first or left
relation R in R S; if no matching tuple is found in S, then the
attributes of S in the join result are filled or “padded” with null
values.
• A similar operation, right outer join, keeps every tuple in the
second or right relation S in the result of R S.
• A third operation, full outer join, denoted by keeps all tuples in
both the left and the right relations when no matching tuples are
found, padding them with null values as needed.

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Relational Calculus

• A relational calculus expression creates a new relation, which is

specified in terms of variables that range over rows of the stored
database relations (in tuple calculus) or over columns of the
stored relations (in domain calculus).
• In a calculus expression, there is no order of operations to specify
how to retrieve the query result—a calculus expression specifies
only what information the result should contain.
• This is the main distinguishing feature between relational algebra
and relational calculus.

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• Relational calculus is considered to be a nonprocedural or

declarative language.
• This differs from relational algebra, where we must write a
sequence of operations to specify a retrieval request; hence
relational algebra can be considered as a procedural way of
stating a query.

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Tuple Relational Calculus

• The tuple relational calculus is based on specifying a number of

tuple variables.
• Each tuple variable usually ranges over a particular database
relation, meaning that the variable may take as its value any
individual tuple from that relation.
• A simple tuple relational calculus query is of the form
{t | COND(t)}
• where t is a tuple variable and COND (t) is a conditional expression
involving t.
• The result of such a query is the set of all tuples t that satisfy COND
(t).

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• Example: To find the first and last names of all employees whose
salary is above $50,000, we can write the following tuple calculus
expression:
{t.FNAME, t.LNAME | EMPLOYEE(t) AND t.SALARY>50000}
• The condition EMPLOYEE(t) specifies that the range relation of
tuple variable t is EMPLOYEE.
• The first and last name (PROJECTION FNAME, LNAME) of each
EMPLOYEE tuple t that satisfies the condition t.SALARY>50000
(SELECTION SALARY >50000) will be retrieved.

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The Existential and Universal Quantifiers

• Two special symbols called quantifiers can appear in formulas; these

are the universal quantifier  and the existential quantifier 
• Informally, a tuple variable t is bound if it is quantified, meaning that it
appears in an t or t clause; otherwise, it is free.
• If F is a formula, then so are t)(F) and t)(F), where t is a tuple
variable.
• The formula t)(F) is true if the formula F evaluates to true for every tuple
(in the universe) assigned to free occurrences of t in F; otherwise t)(F) is
false.
• The formula t)(F) is true if the formula F evaluates to true for some (at
least one) tuple assigned to free occurrences of t in F; otherwise  t)(F) is
false.

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• Retrieve the name and address of all employees who work for the ‘Research’ department. The
query can be expressed as :
{t.FNAME, t.LNAME, t.ADDRESS | EMPLOYEE(t) and  d)
(DEPARTMENT(d) and d.DNAME=‘Research’ and d.DNUMBER=t.DNO) }
• The only free tuple variables in a relational calculus expression should be those that appear to
the left of the bar ( | ).
• In above query, t is the only free variable; it is then bound successively to each tuple.
• If a tuple satisfies the conditions specified in the query, the attributes FNAME, LNAME, and
ADDRESS are retrieved for each such tuple.
• The conditions EMPLOYEE (t) and DEPARTMENT(d) specify the range relations for t and d.
• The condition d.DNAME = ‘Research’ is a selection condition and corresponds to a
SELECT operation in the relational algebra, whereas the condition d.DNUMBER = t.DNO
is a JOIN condition.

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• Find the names of employees who work on all the projects controlled by department number
5. The query can be:
{e.LNAME, e.FNAME | EMPLOYEE(e) and  x)(not(PROJECT(x)) or not(x.DNUM=5)
OR  w)(WORKS_ON(w) and w.ESSN=e.SSN and x.PNUMBER=w.PNO))))}
• Exclude from the universal quantification all tuples that we are not interested in by making
the condition true for all such tuples.
• The first tuples to exclude (by making them evaluate automatically to true) are those that are
not in the relation R of interest.
• In query above, using the expression not(PROJECT(x)) inside the universally quantified
formula evaluates to true all tuples x that are not in the PROJECT relation.
• Then we exclude the tuples we are not interested in from R itself. The expression
not(x.DNUM=5) evaluates to true all tuples x that are in the project relation but are not
controlled by department 5.
• Finally, we specify a condition that must hold on all the remaining tuples in R.
 w)(WORKS_ON(w) and w.ESSN=e.SSN and x.PNUMBER=w.PNO)

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The Domain Relational Calculus

• Another variation of relational calculus called the domain relational calculus, or

simply, domain calculus is equivalent to tuple calculus and to relational
algebra.
• The language called QBE (Query-By-Example) that is related to domain calculus
was developed almost concurrently to SQL at IBM Research, Yorktown Heights,
New York.
• Domain calculus was thought of as a way to explain what QBE does.
• Domain calculus differs from tuple calculus in the type of variables used in
formulas:
• Rather than having variables range over tuples, the variables range over
single values from domains of attributes.
• To form a relation of degree n for a query result, we must have n of these
domain variables— one for each attribute.

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Retrieve the birthdate and address of the employee whose name is ‘John B. Smith’.
• Query :
{uv | (q) (r) (s) (t) (w) (x) (y) (z)
(EMPLOYEE(qrstuvwxyz) and q=’John’ and r=’B’ and s=’Smith’)}

• Abbreviated notation EMPLOYEE(qrstuvwxyz) uses the

variables without the separating commas: EMPLOYEE(q,r,s,t,u,v,w,x,y,z)

• Specify the condition for selecting a tuple following the bar ( | )—

• namely, that the sequence of values assigned to the variables qrstuvwxyz be a tuple
of the employee relation and that the values for q (FNAME), r (MINIT), and s (LNAME)
be ‘John’, ‘B’, and ‘Smith’, respectively.

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• An expression of the domain calculus is of the form

{ x1, x2, . . ., xn |
COND(x1, x2, . . ., xn, xn+1, xn+2, . . ., xn+m)}
• where x1, x2, . . ., xn, xn+1, xn+2, . . ., xn+m are domain variables that
range over domains (of attributes)
• and COND is a condition or formula of the domain relational
calculus.

59 Design and Manage Database

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60 Design and Manage Database