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Monday, 25 March 2013

RDBMS CONCEPTS


  •        What is an attribute?

It is a particular property, which describes the entity.

  •        What is a Relation Schema and a Relation?

A relation Schema denoted by R(A1, A2, …, An) is made up of the relation name R and the list of attributes Ai that it contains. A relation is defined as a set of tuples. Let r be the relation which contains set tuples (t1, t2, t3, ..., tn). Each tuple is an ordered list of n-values t=(v1,v2, ..., vn).

  •        What is degree of a Relation?

It is the number of attribute of its relation schema.

  •      What is Relationship?

It is an association among two or more entities.

  •      What is Relationship set?

The collection (or set) of similar relationships.

  •      What is Relationship type?  

Relationship type defines a set of associations or a relationship set  among a given set of entity types.  

  •     What is degree of Relationship type?

It is the number of entity type participating.

  •      What is DDL (Data Definition Language)?

A data base schema is specifies by a set of definitions expressed by a special language called DDL.

  •      What is VDL (View Definition Language)?

It specifies user views and their mappings to the conceptual schema.

  •         What is SDL (Storage Definition Language)?

This language is to specify the internal schema. This language may specify the mapping between two schemas.

  •      What is Data Storage - Definition Language?

The storage structures and access methods used by database system are specified by a set of definition in a special type of DDL called data storage-definition language.

  •        What is DML (Data Manipulation Language)?

This language that enable user to access or manipulate data as organised by appropriate data model.
Ø  Procedural DML or Low level: DML requires a user to specify what data are needed and how to get those data.
Ø  Non-Procedural DML or High level:  DML requires a user to specify what data are needed without specifying how to get those data.

  •      What is DML Compiler?

It translates DML statements in a query language into low-level instruction that the query evaluation engine can understand.

  •      What is Query evaluation engine?

It executes low-level instruction generated by compiler.

  •       What is DDL Interpreter?

It interprets DDL statements and record them in tables containing metadata.

  •      What is Record-at-a-time?

The Low level or Procedural DML can specify and retrieve each record from a set of records. This retrieve of a record is said to be Record-at-a-time.

  •      What is Set-at-a-time or Set-oriented?

The High level or Non-procedural DML can specify and retrieve many records in a single DML statement. This retrieve of a record is said to be Set-at-a-time or Set-oriented.

  •      What is Relational Algebra?

It is procedural query language. It consists of a set of operations that take one or two relations as input and produce a new relation.

  •       What is Relational Calculus?

It is an applied predicate calculus specifically tailored for relational databases proposed by E.F. Codd. E.g. of languages based on it are DSL ALPHA, QUEL.

  •   How does Tuple-oriented relational calculus differ from domain-oriented relational calculus

The tuple-oriented calculus uses a tuple variables i.e., variable whose only permitted values are tuples of that relation. E.g. QUEL
The domain-oriented calculus has domain variables i.e., variables that range over the underlying domains instead of over relation. E.g. ILL, DEDUCE.

  •      What is normalization?

It is a process of analysing the given relation schemas based on their Functional Dependencies (FDs) and primary key to achieve the properties
Ø  Minimizing redundancy
Ø  Minimizing insertion, deletion and update anomalies.  

  •       What is Functional Dependency?  

A Functional dependency is denoted by X     Y between two sets of attributes X and Y that are subsets of R specifies a constraint on the possible tuple that can form a relation state r of R. The constraint is for any two tuples t1 and t2 in r if t1[X] = t2[X] then they have t1[Y] = t2[Y]. This means the value of X component of a tuple uniquely determines the value of component Y.

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