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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.
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 ...
As another example, define the relation R el on R by x R el y if x 2 + xy + y 2 = 1. The representation of R el as a 2D-plot obtains an ellipse, see right picture. Since R is not finite, neither a directed graph, nor a finite Boolean matrix, nor a Hasse diagram can be used to depict R el.
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 relational algebra, a rename is a unary operation written as / where: . R is a relation; a and b are attribute names; b is an attribute of R; The result is identical to R except that the b attribute in all tuples is renamed to a. [1]
In relational algebra, a selection (sometimes called a restriction in reference to E.F. Codd's 1970 paper [1] and not, contrary to a popular belief, to avoid confusion with SQL's use of SELECT, since Codd's article predates the existence of SQL) is a unary operation that denotes a subset of a relation.
The above table is also a simple example of a relational database, a field with theory rooted in relational algebra and applications in data management. [6] Computer scientists, logicians, and mathematicians, however, tend to have different conceptions what a general relation is, and what it is consisted of.
In relational algebra, if and are relations, then the composite relation is defined so that if and only if there is a such that and . [ note 1 ] This definition is a generalisation of the definition of functional composition .