DBMS module 2.

Query Processing Strategy

Database Engineering 4th SEM CSE

 Basic Steps in Query Processing
1. Parsing and translation
2. Optimization
3. Evaluation
Parser & Relational Algebra
Query Expression
Translator

Optimizer

Query Evaluation
Output Engine Execution Plan

Statistics
Data
About Data
CIS552 Query Processing 2
Database Engineering 4th SEM CSE
 Basic Steps in Query Processing (Cont.)

Parsing and translation

• translate the query into its internal form. This is then
translated into relational algebra.
• Parser checks syntax, verifies relations
Evaluation
• The query-execution engine takes a query-evaluation
plan, executes that plan, and returns the answers to the
query.

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 Basic Steps in Query Processing
Optimization – finding the cheapest evaluation plan for a query.
• Given relational algebra expression may have many equivalent
expressions
E.g. σbalance<2500(Πbalance(account) is equivalent to
Πbalance(σbalance<2500(account))
• Any relational-algebra expression can be evaluated in
many ways. Annotated expression specifying detailed
evaluation strategy is called an evaluation-plan.
E.g. can use an index on balance to find accounts with
balance <2500, or can perform complete relation scan and
discard accounts with balance ≥ 2500
• Amongst all equivalent expressions, try to choose the one
with cheapest possible evaluation-plan. Cost estimate of a
plan based on statistical information in the DBMS catalog.

Query Processing 4
Database Engineering 4th SEM CSE
 Catalog Information for Cost Estimation
• nr: number of tuples in relation r.
• br: number of blocks containing tuples of r.
• sr: size of a tuple of r in bytes.
• fr: blocking factor of r - i.e., the number of tuples of r that fit into one
block.
• V(A, r): number of distinct values that appear in r for attribute A;
same as the size of ΠA(r).
• SC(A, r): selection cardinality of attribute A of relation r; average
number of records that satisfy equality on A.
• If tuples of r are stored together physically in a file, then:
n 
br =  r 
 fr 

CIS552 Query Processing 5

Database Engineering 4th SEM CSE
 Evaluation of Expressions
• Materialization: evaluate one operation at a time, starting
at the lowest-level. Use intermediate results materialized
into temporary relations to evaluate next-level operations.
• E.g., in figure below, compute and store σbalance<2500(account);
then compute and store its join with customer, and finally
compute the projection on customer-name.
Πcustomer-name

σbalance<2500 customer

account

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 Evaluation of Expressions (Cont.)
• Pipelining: evaluate several operations simultaneously,
passing the results of one operation on to the next.
• E.g., in expression in previous slide, don’t store result of
σbalance<2500(Account) – instead, pass tuples directly to
the join. Similarly, don’t store result of join, pass tuples
directly to projection.
• Much cheaper than materialization: no need to store a
temporary relation to disk.
• For pipelining to be effective, use evaluation algorithms
that generate output tuples even as tuples are received
for inputs to the operation.

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 Transformation of Relational Expressions

• Generation of query-evaluation plans for an expression

involves two steps:
1. generating logically equivalent expressions
2. annotating resultant expressions to get alternative
query plans
• Use equivalence rules to transform an expression into
an equivalent one.
• Based on estimated cost, the cheapest plan is selected.
The process is called cost based optimization.

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 Equivalence of Expressions
• Relations generated by two equivalent expressions have the same
set of attributes and contain the same set of tuples, although their
attributes may be ordered differently.
Πcustomer-name
Πcustomer-name

σ branch-city = Brooklyn

σ branch-city = Brooklyn
branch

account depositor branch account depositor

(a) Initial Expression Tree (b) Transformed Expression Tree

Equivalent expressions
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 Equivalence Rules
1. Conjunctive selection operations can be deconstructed
into a sequence of individual selections.
σθ1 ∧ θ2 (E) = σθ1 ( θ2 (E))
2. Selection operations are commutative.
σθ1 ( σθ2 (E))= σθ2 (σθ1 (E))
3. Only the last in a sequence of projection operations is
needed, the others can be omitted.
ΠL1(ΠL2(…(ΠLn(E))…)) = ΠL1(E)
4. Selections can be combined with Cartesian products
and theta joins.
(a) σθ (E1× E2) = E1 θ E2
(b) σθ1 (E1 θ E2) = E1 θ ∧ θ E2
2 1 2

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 Equivalence Rules (Cont.)

5. Theta-join operations (and natural joins) are

commutative.
E1 θ E2 = E2 θ E1
6. (a) Natural join operations are associative:
(E1 E2) E3 = E1 (E2 E3)
(b) Theta joins are associative in the following manner:
(E1 θ1 E2) θ 2 ∧ θ3 E3 = E1 θ1 ∧ θ3 (E2 θ2 E3)

where θ2 involves attributes from only E2 and E3.

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 Equivalence Rules (Cont.)
7. The selection operation distributes over the theta join
operation under the following two conditions:
(a) When all the attributes in θ0 involve only the attributes
of one of the expressions (E1) being joined.
σθ0 (E1 θ E2) = (σθ0 (E1)) θ E2
(b) When θ1 involves only the attributes of E1 and θ2
involves only the attributes of E2.
σθ ∧ θ (E1 θ E2) = (σθ1 (E1)) θ (σθ2 ( E2))
1 2

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 Equivalence Rules (Cont.)
8. The projection operation distributes over the theta join
operation as follows:
(a) if θ involves only attributes from L1 ∪ L2:
ΠL1∪ L2 (E1 θ E2) = (ΠL1(E1)) θ (ΠL2(E2))
(b) Consider a join E1 θ E2. Let L1 and L2 be sets of
attributes from E1 and E2, respectively. Let L3 be
attributes of E1 that are involved in join condition θ ,

but are not in L1 ∪ L2, and let L4 be attributes of E2 that

are involved in join condition θ , but are not in L1 ∪ L2.
ΠL1∪ L2 (E1 θ E2) = ΠL1∪ L2((ΠL1∪ L3 (E1)) θ (ΠL2∪ L4 (E2)))

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 Equivalence Rules (Cont.)
9. The set operations union and intersection are commutative (set
difference is not commutative).
E1 ∪ E2 = E2 ∪ E1
E1 ∩ E2 = E2 ∩ E1
10. Set union and intersection are associative.
11. The selection operation distributes over ∪, ∩ and −. E.g.:
σp(E1 − E2) = σp(E1) − σp(E2)
For difference
and intersection, union we also have:
σp(E1 ∩ E2) = σp(E1) ∩ σp(E2)
σp(E1 ∩ E2) = σp(E1) ∩ σp(E2)

12. The projection operation distributes over the union operation.

ΠL(E1 ∪ E2) = (ΠL(E1)) ∪ ΠL(E2))

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 Selection Operation Example
• Query: Find the names of all customers who have an
account at some branch located in Brooklyn.
Πcustomer-name(σbranch-city = “Brooklyn”
(branch (account depositor)))
• Transformation using rule 7a.
Πcustomer-name
((σbranch-city = “Brooklyn” (branch)) (account depositor))

• Performing the selection as early as possible reduces

the size of the relation to be joined.

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Database Engineering 4th SEM CSE
 Selection Operation Example(Cont.)
• Query: Find the names of all customers with an account at a
Brooklyn branch whose account balance is over $1000.
Πcustomer-name(σbranch-city = “Brooklyn” ∧ balance > 1000
(branch (account depositor))
• Transformation using join associativity (Rule 6a):
Πcustomer-name(σbranch-city = “Brooklyn” ∧ balance > 1000
(branch account) depositor))
• Second form provides an opportunity to apply the “Perform
selections early” rule, resulting in the subexpression
σbranch-city = “Brooklyn” (branch) σbalance > 1000 (account)
• Thus a sequence of transformations can be useful

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 Projection Operation Example

Πcustomer-name((σbranch-city = “Brooklyn” (branch)

account) depositor)
• When we compute
(σbranch-city = “Brooklyn” (branch) account)
We obtain a relation whose schema is:
(branch-name, branch-city, assets, account-number, balance)
• Push projections using equivalence rules 8a and 8b; eliminate
unneeded attributes from intermediate results to get:
Πcustomer-name ((Πaccount-number (
σbranch-city = “Brooklyn” (branch)) account)) depositor)

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Database Engineering 4th SEM CSE
 Join Ordering Example
• For all relations r1, r2 and r3,
(r1 r2) r3 = r1 (r2 r3)
• If r2 r3 is quite large and r1 r2 is small, we choose
(r1 r2) r3
so that we compute and store a smaller temporary
relation.

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Database Engineering 4th SEM CSE
 Heuristic Optimization
• Cost-based optimization is expensive, even with
dynamic programming.
• Systems may use heuristics to reduce the number of
choices that must be made in a cost-based fashion.
• Heuristic optimization transforms the query-tree by
using a set of rules that typically ( but not in all cases)
improve execution performance:
– Perform selection early (reduces the number of tuples)
– Perform projection early ( reduces the number of attributes)
– Perform most restrictive selection and join operations before
other similar operations.
• Some systems use only heuristics, others combine
heuristics with partial cost-based optimization.
Query Processing 19
Database Engineering 4th SEM CSE