An Introduction to Database Systems

authoritative resource for readers interested in gaining insight into and understanding of the principles of database systems. This exciting revision continues to provide a solid grounding in the foundations of database technology and to provide some ideas as to how the field is likely to develop in the future. The material is organized into six major parts. Part I provides a broad introduction to the concepts of database systems in general and relational systems in particular. Part II consists of a careful description of the relational model, which is the theoretical foundation for the database field as a whole. Part III discusses the general theory of database design. Part IV is concerned with transaction management. Part V shows how relational concepts are relevant to a variety of further aspects of database technologyPsecurity, distributed databases, temporal data, decision support, and so on. Finally, Part VI describes the impact of object technology on database systems. This Seventh Edition of An Introduction to Database Systems features widely rewritten material to improve and amplify treatment of several topics, including: *Revised and expanded material on the relational model, particularly the sections on types (domains), relation values vs. relation variables, integrity, predicates, and views * New material on relation-valued attributes, denormalization, orthogonal design, and alternative approaches to semantic modeling (including "business rules") * Complete new chapters covering type inheritance, decision support, and temporal databases * Two new appendixes, one on detail of SQL and one on SQL3 Readers of this book will gain a strong working knowledge of the overall structure, concepts, and objectives of database systems and will become familiar with the theoretical principles underlying the construction of such systems.

Table of Contents:
PART I. PRELIMINARIES. 1. An Overview of Database Management. Introduction. What is a database system? What is a database? Why database? Data independence. Relational systems and others. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 2. Database System Architecture. Introduction. The three levels of the architecture. The external level. The conceptual level. The internal level. Mappings. The database administrator. The database management system. The data communications manager. Client/server architecture. Utilities. Distributed processing. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. 3. An Introduction to Relational Databases. Introduction. An informal look at the relational model. Relations and relvars. What relations mean. Optimization. The catalog. Base relvars and views. Transactions. The suppliers and parts database. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 4. An Introduction to Sql. Introduction. Overview. The catalog. Views. transactions. Embedded SQL. SQL is not perfect. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. PART II. THE RELATIONAL MODEL. 5. Domains, Relations, and Base Relvars. Introduction. Domains. Relation values. Relation variables. SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 6. Relational Algebra. Introduction. Closure revisited. Syntax. Semantics. Examples. What is the algebra for? Additional operators. Grouping and ungrouping. Relational comparisons. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 7. Relational Calculus. Introduction. Tuple calculus. Examples. Calculus vs. algebra. Computational capabilities. Domain calculus. SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 8. Integrity. Introduction. Type constraints. Attribute constraints. Relvar constraints. Database constraints. The Golden Rule. State vs. transition constraints. Keys. SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 9. Views. Introduction. What are views for? View retrievals. ' View updates. Snapshots (a digression). SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. PART III. DATABASE DESIGN. 10. Functional Dependencies. Introduction. Basic definitions. Trivial and nontrivial dependencies. Closure of a set of dependencies. Closure of a set of attributes. Irreducible sets of dependencies. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 11. Further Normalization I: 1nf, 2nf, 3nf, Bcn. Introduction. Nonloss decomposition and functional dependencies. First, second, and third normal forms. Dependency preservation. Boyce/Codd normal form. A note on relation-valued attributes. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 12. Further Normalization Ii: Higher Normal Forms. Introduction. Multi-valued dependencies and fourth normal form. Join dependencies and fifth normal form. The normalization procedure summarized. A note on denormalization. Orthogonal design (a digression). Other normal forms. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 13. Semantic Modeling. Introduction. The overall approach. The E/R model. E/R diagrams. Database design with the E/R model. A brief analysis. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. PART IV: TRANSACTION MANAGEMENT. 14. Recovery. Introduction. Transactions. Transaction recovery. System recovery. Media recovery. Two-phase commit. SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 15. Concurrency. Introduction. Three concurrency problems. Locking. The three concurrency problems revisited. Deadlock. Serializability. Isolation levels. Intent locking. SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. PART V. FURTHER TOPICS. 16. Security. Introduction. Discretionary access control. Mandatory access control. Statistical databases. Data encryption. SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 17. Optimization. Introduction. A motivating example. An overview of query processing. Expression transformation. Database statistics. A divide and conquer strategy. Implementing the relational operators. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 18. Missing Information. Introduction. An overview of the 3VL approach. Some consequences of the foregoing scheme. Nulls and keys. Outer join (a digression). Special values. SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 19. Type Inheritance. Introduction. Type hierarchies. Polymorphism and substitutability. Variables and assignments. Specialization by constraint. Comparisons. Operators, versions, and signatures. Is a circle an ellipse? Specialization by constraint revisited. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 20. Distributed Databases. Introduction. Some preliminaries. The twelve objectives. Problems of distributed systems. Client/server systems. DBMS independence. SQL facilities. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. 21. Decision Support. Introduction. Aspects of decision support. Database design for decision support. Data preparation. Data warehouses and data marts. Online analytical processing. Data mining. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 22. Temporal Databases. Introduction. Temporal data. What is the problem? Intervals. Interval types. Scalar operators on intervals. Aggregate operators on intervals. Relational operators involving intervals. Constraints involving intervals. Update operators involving intervals. Database design considerations. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 23. Logic-Based Databases. Introduction. Overview. Propositional calculus. Predicate calculus. A proof-theoretic view of databases. Deductive database systems. Recursive query processing. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. PART VI. OBJECT AND OBJECT/RELATIONAL DATABASES. 24. Object Databases. Introduction. Objects, classes, methods, and messages. A closer look. A cradle-to-grave example. Miscellaneous issues. Summary. Exercises. Reference and bibliography. Answers to selected exercises. 25. Object / Relational Databases. Introduction. The First Great Blunder. The Second Great Blunder. Implementation issues. Benefits of true rapprochement. Summary. Reference and bibliography. Appendixes. Appendix A: SQL Expressions. Introduction. Table expressions. Conditional expressions. Scalar expressions. Appendix B: An Overview of SQl3. Introduction. New data types. Type inheritance. Reference types. Subtables and supertables. Other features. Appendix C: Abbreviations, Acronyms, and Symbol. Index.

About the Author :
C. J. Date is an independent author, lecturer, researcher, and consultant specializing in relational database systems, a field he helped pioneer. Among other projects, he was involved in technical planning for the IBM products SQL/DS and DB2. He is best known for his books, in particular, An Introduction to Database Systems (7th edition, Addison-Wesley, 2000), the standard text in the field, which has sold well over half a million copies worldwide. Mr. Date is widely acknowledged for his ability to explain complex technical material in a clear and understandable fashion. 0201385902AB04062001

Review :
"Chris Date is the computer industry's most respected expert and thinker on database technology, and his book An Introduction to Database Systems continues to be the definitive work for those wanting a comprehensive and current guide to database systems." — Colin J. White, Founder, DataBase Associates International, Inc. "...both an indispensable read and an indispensable reference. No serious information systems or database practitioner should be without this book." — Declan Brady, MBCS, Systems Architect and Database Specialist, ICL "[The book's] greatest appeal is its comprehensiveness and the fact that it is very up-to-date with research developments. The latter factor is due mainly to [Date's] involvement with these developments, which gives him a unique opportunity to write about them." — David Livingstone, University of Northumbria at Newcastle "A truly comprehensive, state-of-the-art coverage of the Relational Model, written in the clear and precise style that characterizes Date." — Sudha Ram, University of Arizona "The author's deep insights into the area, informal treatment of profound topics, open-ended discussions of critical issues, comprehensive and up-to-date contents, as well as rich annotations on bibliography have made the book most popular in the database area for more than two decades. — Qiang Zhu, The University of Michigan-Dearborn "C. J. Date's book presents, SQL facilities more clearly and in greater detail than other books. Readers can learn both theorems and acquire knowledge for practical work from this book." — Huizhu Lu, Oklahoma State University "One thing which I have always found good about Date's text is the set of references at the end of each chapter. These references reflect both historical and recent research and provide a good source of information for the interested reader." — Tim Hartley, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Hartford