Last Minute Notes – DBMS

 Difficulty Level : Medium

 Last Updated : 28 Jun, 2021

See Last Minute Notes on all subjects here.

We will discuss the important key points useful for GATE exams in summarized form. For details you
may refer this.

E-R Diagram: The most common asked questions in ER diagram is minimum number of tables
required for a given ER diagram. Generally, following criteria are used:

Cardinality Minimum No. of tables

1:1 cardinality with partial

participation of both
entities 2

1:1 cardinality with total

participation of atleast 1
entity 1

1:n cardinality 2

m:n cardinality 3

Note: This is a general observation. Special cases need to be taken care. We may need extra table if
attribute of a relationship can’t be moved to any entity side.
Keys of a relation: There are various types of keys in a relation which are:

 Candidate Key: The minimal set of attributes which can determine a tuple uniquely. There
can be more than 1 candidate key of a relation and its proper subset can’t determine tuple
uniquely and it can’t be NULL.

 Super Key: The set of attributes which can determine a tuple uniquely. A candidate key is
always a super key but vice versa is not true.

 Primary Key and Alternate Key: Among various candidate keys, one key is taken primary key
and others are alternate keys.

 Foreign Key: Foreign Key is a set of attributes in a table which is used to refer the primary
key or alternative key of the same or other table.

Normal Forms

 First Normal Form: A relation is in first normal form if it does not contain any multi-valued
or composite attribute.

 Second Normal Form: A relation is in second normal form if it does not contain any partial
dependency. A dependency is called partial dependency if any proper subset of candidate
key determines non-prime (which are not part of candidate key) attribute.

 Third Normal Form: A relation is in third normal form if it does not contain any transitive
dependency. For a relation to be in Third Normal Form, either LHS of FD should be super key
or RHS should be prime attribute.

 Boyce-Codd Normal Form: A relation is in Boyce-Codd Normal Form if LHS of every FD is

super key. The relationship between Normal Forms can be represented
as: 1NF⊃2NF ⊃3NF ⊃BCNF

Relational Algebra: Procedural language with basic and extended operators.

Basic
Operator Semantic

σ(Selection) Select rows based on given condition

∏(Projection) Project some columns

X (Cross Cross product of relations, returns m*n rows where m and n are number of rows in R1 and R2
Product) respectively.

Return those tuples which are either in R1 or in R2. Max no. of rows returned = m+n andMin no. o
U (Union) rows returned = max(m,n)

R1-R2 returns those tuples which are in R1 but not in R2. Max no. of rows returned = m and Min n
−(Minus) rows returned = m-n

ρ(Rename) Renaming a relation to other relation.

Extended
Operator Semantic

Returns those tuples which are in both R1 and R2. Max no. of rows returned = min(m,n) and M
∩ (Intersection) no. of rows returned = 0

⋈c(Conditional
Join) Selection from two or more tables based on some condition (Cross product followed by select

⋈(Equi Join)

It is a special case of conditional join when only equality condition is applied between attribut

In natural join, equality condition on common attributes hold and duplicate attributes are rem
by default. Note: Natural Join is equivalent to cross product if two relations have no attribute
⋈(Natural Join) common and natural join of a relation R with itself will return R only.
 When applying join on two relations R and S, some tuples of R or S does not appear in result s
⟕(Left Outer which does not satisfy the join conditions. But Left Outer Joins gives all tuples of R in the resul
Join) The tuples of R which do not satisfy join condition will have values as NULL for attributes of S.

When applying join on two relations R and S, some tuples of R or S does not appear in result s
⟖(Right Outer which does not satisfy the join conditions. But Right Outer Joins gives all tuples of S in the resu
Join) set. The tuples of S which do not satisfy join condition will have values as NULL for attributes o

When applying join on two relations R and S, some tuples of R or S does not appear in result s
which does not satisfy the join conditions. But Full Outer Joins gives all tuples of S and all tuple
⟗(Full Outer R in the result set. The tuples of S which do not satisfy join condition will have values as NULL
Join) attributes of R and vice versa.

Division operator A/B will return those tuples in A which is associated with every tuple of
/(Division B.Note:Attributes of B should be proper subset of attributes of A. The attributes in A/B will be
Operator) Attributes of A- Attribute of B.

How to solve Relational Algebra problems for GATE – SET 1

How to solve Relational Algebra problems for GATE – SET 2

SQL: As opposed to Relational Algebra, SQL is a non-procedural language.

Operator Meaning

Selects columns from a relation or set of

relations.Note: As opposed to Relational Algebra, it may
Select give duplicate tuples for repeated value of an attribute.

From is used to give input as relation or set of relations

From from which data needs to be selected.

Where is used to give condition to be used to filter

where tuples
 EXISTS is used to check whether the result of a
correlated nested query is empty (contains no tuples) o
EXISTS not.

Group By is used to group the tuples based on some

attribute or set of attributes like counting the no. of
Group By students group by department.

Order By is used to sort the fetched data in either

ascending or descending according to one or more
Order By columns.

Find the aggregated value of an attribute. Used mostly

with group by. e.g.; count, sum, min max. select
count(*) from student group by dept_idNote: we can
Aggregate functions select only those columns which are part of group by.

When one query is a part of other query. Solving nested

queries questions can be learnt
in https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/nested-queries-in-
Nested Queries sql/

Conflict serializable and Conflict Equivalent: A schedule is conflict serializable if it is conflict

equivalent to a serial schedule.

Checking for Conflict Serializability

To check whether a schedule is conflict serializable or not, find all conflicting operations pairs of a
schedule and draw precedence graph ( For all conflicting operation pair, an edge from Ti to Tj if one
operation of conflicting pair is from Ti and other from Tj and operation of Ti occurs before Tj in
schedule). If graph does not contain cycle, the schedule is conflict serializable else it is not conflict
serializable.

Schedules are said to be conflict equivalent if 1 schedule can be converted into another by swapping
non conflicting operations.

Note: Two phase locking protocol produce conflict serializable schedule but may suffer from
deadlock. On the other hand, Time-Stamp based protocols are free from deadlock yet produce
conflict serializable schedule.
View Serializable and View Equivalence : Two schedules S1 and S2 are said to be view-equivalent if
all conditions are satisfied for all objects:

 If the transaction Ti in S1 reads an initial value for object X, in S2 also, Ti must read the initial
value of X.

 If the transaction Ti in S1 reads the value written by transaction Tj in S1 for object X, same
should be done in S2.

 If the transaction Ti in S1 is the final transaction to write the value for an object X, in S2
also, Ti must write the final value of X.

A schedule is view serializable if it is view equivalent to any serial schedule.

Irrecoverable Schedules: For a transaction pair < Ti, Tj >, if Tj is reading the value updated by Ti and
Tj is committed before commit of Ti, the schedule will be irrecoverable.

Recoverable Schedules: For a transaction pair < Ti, Tj >, if Tj is reading the value updated by Ti and Tj
is committed after commit of Ti, the schedule will be recoverable.

Cascadeless Recoverable Schedules: For a transaction pair < Ti, Tj >, if value updated by Ti is read by
Tj only after commit of Ti, the schedule will be cascadeless recoverable.

Strict Recoverable: For a transaction pair < Ti, Tj >, if value updated by Ti is read or written by Tj only
after commit of Ti, the schedule will be strict recoverable. The relationship between them can be
represented as:

Strict ⊂ Cascadeless Recoverable ⊂ recoverable ⊂ all schedules

File structures

Primary Index :: A primary index is an ordered file, records of fixed length with two fields. First field
is same as primary key as data file and second field is a pointer to data block, where the key is
available.
The average number of block accesses using index = log2 Bi + 1, where Bi = number of index blocks.

Clustering Index : Clustering index is created on data file whose records are physically ordered on a
non-key field (called Clustering field).

Secondary Index : Secondary index provides secondary means of accessing a file for which primary
access already exists.

Number of index entries = Number of records

B Trees
At every level , we have Key and Data Pointer and data pointer points to either block or record.

Properties of B-Trees :
Root of B-tree can have children between 2 and P, where P is Order of tree.

Order of tree – Maximum number of children a node can have.

Internal node can have children between ⌈ P/2 ⌉ and P
Internal node can have keys between ⌈ P/2 ⌉ – 1 and P-1
B+ Trees
In B+ trees structure of leaf and non-leaf are different, so their order is. Order of non-leaf will be
higher as compared to leaf nodes.

Searching time will be less in B+ tress, since it doesn’t have record pointers in non-leaf because of
which depth will decrease.