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The relational algebra uses set union, set difference, and Cartesian product from set theory, and adds additional constraints to these operators to create new ones.. For set union and set difference, the two relations involved must be union-compatible—that is, the two relations must have the same set of attributes.
This article lists mathematical properties and laws of sets, involving the set-theoretic operations of union, intersection, and complementation and the relations of set equality and set inclusion. It also provides systematic procedures for evaluating expressions, and performing calculations, involving these operations and relations.
A relation algebra (L, ∧, ∨, −, 0, 1, •, I, ˘) is an algebraic structure equipped with the Boolean operations of conjunction x∧y, disjunction x∨y, and negation x −, the Boolean constants 0 and 1, the relational operations of composition x•y and converse x˘, and the relational constant I, such that these operations and constants satisfy certain equations constituting an ...
An inner join (or join) requires each row in the two joined tables to have matching column values, and is a commonly used join operation in applications but should not be assumed to be the best choice in all situations. Inner join creates a new result table by combining column values of two tables (A and B) based upon the join-predicate.
For example, "is a blood relative of" is a symmetric relation, because x is a blood relative of y if and only if y is a blood relative of x. Antisymmetric for all x, y ∈ X, if xRy and yRx then x = y. For example, ≥ is an antisymmetric relation; so is >, but vacuously (the condition in the definition is always false). [11] Asymmetric
Another form of composition of relations, which applies to general -place relations for , is the join operation of relational algebra. The usual composition of two binary relations as defined here can be obtained by taking their join, leading to a ternary relation, followed by a projection that removes the middle component.
In practical terms, if a relation is thought of as a table, then projection can be thought of as picking a subset of its columns. For example, if the attributes are (name, age), then projection of the relation {(Alice, 5), (Bob, 8)} onto attribute list (age) yields {5,8} – we have discarded the names, and only know what ages are present.
A view can be defined by an expression using the operators of the relational algebra or the relational calculus. Such an expression operates on one or more relations and when evaluated yields another relation. The result is sometimes referred to as a "derived" relation when the operands are relations assigned to database variables.