Explain the evaluation of relational algebra expression(DBMS)

SQL queries are decomposed into query blocks. One query block contains a single SELECT-FROM-WHERE expression, as well as GROUP BY and HAVING clause (if any). Nested queries are split into separate query blocks.

Example

Consider an example given below −

Select lastname, firstname from employee where salary>(select max(salary) from employee where deptname =CSE ;
C=(select max(salary) from employee where deptname=CSE); // inner block
Select lastname, firstname from employee where salary>c; //outer block

Where C represents the result returned from the inner block.

• The relation algebra for the inner block is Ģ_max(salary) (σ_dname=CSE(employee))

• The relation algebra for the outer blocks is Π_{lastname, firstname}(σ_salary>c(employee))

The query optimizer would then choose an execution or evaluation plan for each block.

Evaluation of relational algebra expressions

Materialized evaluation − Evaluate one operation at a time. Evaluate the expression in a bottom-up manner and stores intermediate results to temporary files.

Store the result of A ⋈ B in a temporary file.

Store the result of C ⋈ D in a temporary file.

Finally, join the results stored in temporary files.

The overall cost=sum of costs of individual operations + cost of writing intermediate results to disk, cost of writing results to results to temporary files and reading them back is quite high.

Pipelined evaluation − Evaluate several operations simultaneously. Result of one operation is passed to the next operation. Evaluate the expression in a bottom-up manner and don’t store intermediate results to temporary files.

Don’t store the result of A ⋈ B in a temporary file. Instead the result is passed directly for projection with C and so on.

Bhanu Priya

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Updated on: 06-Jul-2021

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