SQL and Relational Theory, 2nd Edition

VIEWS AND CONSTRAINTS

The Principle of Interchangeability implies that views not only have relvar predicates like base relvars, they also have relvar constraints like base relvars—by which I mean they have both individual relvar constraints and what in Chapter 8 I called a total relvar constraint (for the relvar in question). As with predicates, however, the constraints that apply to a view V are derived: They’re derived from the constraints for the relvars in terms of which V is defined, in accordance with the semantics of the relational operations involved in the defining expression. By way of example, consider view LS once again. That view is a restriction of relvar S—i.e., its defining expression specifies a restriction operation on relvar S—and so its (total) relvar constraint is the logical AND of the (total) relvar constraint for S and the specified restriction condition. Let’s suppose for the sake of the example that the only constraint that applies to base relvar S is the constraint that {SNO} is a key. Then the total relvar constraint for view LS is the AND of that key constraint and the constraint that the city is London, and view LS is required to satisfy that constraint at all times. (In other words, The Golden Rule applies to views just as it does to base relvars.)

For simplicity, from this point forward I’ll use the term view constraint to refer to any constraint that applies to some view. Now, just because view constraints are always derived in the sense explained ...