Announcements

1. Announcements Reading for next week: 2 papers available on Blackboard Background Reading: 1.11, 12.1-12.8 in text About homework assignment 1 ...

2. Plan for Today • Review of Database Design, Functional Dependency, and Normal Forms • Choices for Application Design • XML (briefly)

3. Database Design What’s the problem here? Entity-Relationship Model (and Diagrams) Functional Dependencies Legal relations Decompositions Closures and Canonical Covers Dependency Preservation Normal Forms 1st Normal Form Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF) 3rd Normal Form

4. Application Design

5. Application Design • What’s the Big Question/Problem in Application Design? • In other words, why are we studying this?

6. Client Side Scripting and Applets • Browsers can fetch certain scripts (client-side scripts) or programs along with documents, and execute them in “safe mode” at the client site • Javascript • Macromedia Flash and Shockwave for animation/games • VRML • Applets • Client-side scripts/programs allow documents to be active • E.g., animation by executing programs at the local site • E.g. ensure that values entered by users satisfy some correctness checks • Permit flexible interaction with the user. • Executing programs at the client site speeds up interaction by avoiding many round trips to server

7. Security mechanisms needed to ensure that malicious scripts do not cause damage to the client machine Easy for limited capability scripting languages, harder for general purpose programming languages like Java E.g. Java’s security system ensures that the Java applet code does not make any system calls directly Disallows dangerous actions such as file writes Notifies the user about potentially dangerous actions, and allows the option to abort the program or to continue execution. Client Side Scripting and Security

8. A Web server can easily serve as a front end to a variety of information services. The document name in a URL may identify an executable program, that, when run, generates a HTML document. When a HTTP server receives a request for such a document, it executes the program, and sends back the HTML document that is generated. The Web client can pass extra arguments with the name of the document. To install a new service on the Web, one simply needs to create and install an executable that provides that service. The Web browser provides a graphical user interface to the information service. Common Gateway Interface (CGI): a standard interface between web and application server Web Servers

9. HTTP and Sessions • The HTTP protocol is connectionless • That is, once the server replies to a request, the server closes the connection with the client, and forgets all about the request • In contrast, Unix logins, and JDBC/ODBC connections stay connected until the client disconnects • retaining user authentication and other information • Motivation: reduces load on server • operating systems have tight limits on number of open connections on a machine • Information services need session information • E.g. user authentication should be done only once per session • Solution: use a cookie

10. Sessions and Cookies • A cookie is a small piece of text containing identifying information • Sent by server to browser on first interaction • Sent by browser to the server that created the cookie on further interactions • part of the HTTP protocol • Server saves information about cookies it issued, and can use it when serving a request • E.g., authentication information, and user preferences • Cookies can be stored permanently or for a limited time

11. Three-Tier Web Architecture

12. Two-Tier Web Architecture

13. Servlets • Java Servlet specification defines an API for communication between the Web server and application program • E.g. methods to get parameter values and to send HTML text back to client • Application program (also called a servlet) is loaded into the Web server • Two-tier model • Each request spawns a new thread in the Web server • thread is closed once the request is serviced • Servlet API provides a getSession() method • Sets a cookie on first interaction with browser, and uses it to identify session on further interactions • Provides methods to store and look-up per-session information • E.g. user name, preferences, ..

14. Example Servlet Code public class BankQueryServlet extends HttpServlet {public void doGet(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse result) throws ServletException, IOException { String type = request.getParameter(“type”); String number = request.getParameter(“number”); …code to find the loan amount/account balance … …using JDBC to communicate with the database.. …we assume the value is stored in the variable balance result.setContentType(“text/html”); PrintWriter out = result.getWriter( ); out.println(“<HEAD><TITLE>Query Result</TITLE></HEAD>”); out.println(“<BODY>”); out.println(“Balance on “ + type + number + “=“ + balance); out.println(“</BODY>”); out.close ( );} }

15. Server-Side Scripting • Server-side scripting simplifies the task of connecting a database to the Web • Define a HTML document with embedded executable code/SQL queries. • Input values from HTML forms can be used directly in the embedded code/SQL queries. • When the document is requested, the Web server executes the embedded code/SQL queries to generate the actual HTML document. • Numerous server-side scripting languages • JSP, Server-side Javascript, ColdFusion Markup Language (cfml), PHP, Jscript • General purpose scripting languages: VBScript, Perl, Python

16. Comparative Advantages • JDBC and ODBC from Client • Positive: • Negative: • Client-side Scripting and Applets • Positive: • Negative: • Three-Tier Server Architecture • Positive: • Negative: • Two-Tier Server Architecture • Positive: • Negative: • Server-Side Scripting • Positive: • Negative:

17. eXtensible Markup Language (XML)

18. XML: Motivation • Data interchange is critical in today’s networked world • Examples: • Banking: funds transfer • Order processing (especially inter-company orders) • Scientific data • Chemistry: ChemML, … • Genetics: BSML (Bio-Sequence Markup Language), … • Paper flow of information between organizations is being replaced by electronic flow of information • Each application area has its own set of standards for representing information • XML has become the basis for all new generation data interchange formats

19. XML Motivation (Cont.) • Earlier generation formats were based on plain text with line headers indicating the meaning of fields • Similar in concept to email headers • Does not allow for nested structures, no standard “type” language • Tied too closely to low level document structure (lines, spaces, etc) • Each XML based standard defines what are valid elements, using • XML type specification languages to specify the syntax • DTD (Document Type Descriptors) • XML Schema • Plus textual descriptions of the semantics • XML allows new tags to be defined as required • However, this may be constrained by DTDs • A wide variety of tools is available for parsing, browsing and querying XML documents/data

20. Comparison with Relational Data • Inefficient: tags, which in effect represent schema information, are repeated • Better than relational tuples as a data-exchange format • Unlike relational tuples, XML data is self-documenting due to presence of tags • Non-rigid format: tags can be added • Allows nested structures • Wide acceptance, not only in database systems, but also in browsers, tools, and applications

21. Structure of XML Data • Tag: label for a section of data • Element: section of data beginning with <tagname> and ending with matching </tagname> • Elements must be properly nested • Proper nesting • <account> … <balance> …. </balance> </account> • Improper nesting • <account> … <balance> …. </account> </balance> • Formally: every start tag must have a unique matching end tag, that is in the context of the same parent element. • Every document must have a single top-level element

22. XML Example <bank> <account> <account_number> A-101 </account_number> <branch_name> Downtown </branch_name> <balance> 500 </balance> </account> <depositor> <account_number> A-101 </account_number> <customer_name> Johnson </customer_name> </depositor> </bank>

23. XML Document Schema • Database schemas constrain what information can be stored, and the data types of stored values • XML documents are not required to have an associated schema • However, schemas are very important for XML data exchange • Otherwise, a site cannot automatically interpret data received from another site • Two mechanisms for specifying XML schema • Document Type Definition (DTD) • Widely used • XML Schema • Newer, increasing use

24. Document Type Definition (DTD) • The type of an XML document can be specified using a DTD • DTD constraints structure of XML data • What elements can occur • What attributes can/must an element have • What subelements can/must occur inside each element, and how many times. • DTD does not constrain data types • All values represented as strings in XML • DTD syntax • <!ELEMENT element (subelements-specification) > • <!ATTLIST element (attributes) >

25. Element Specification in DTD • Subelements can be specified as • names of elements, or • #PCDATA (parsed character data), i.e., character strings • EMPTY (no subelements) or ANY (anything can be a subelement) • Example <! ELEMENT depositor (customer_name account_number)> <! ELEMENT customer_name (#PCDATA)> <! ELEMENT account_number (#PCDATA)> • Subelement specification may have regular expressions <!ELEMENT bank ( ( account | customer | depositor)+)> • Notation: • “|” - alternatives • “+” - 1 or more occurrences • “*” - 0 or more occurrences

26. <!DOCTYPE bank [ <!ELEMENT bank ( ( account | customer | depositor)+)> <!ELEMENT account (account_number branch_name balance)> <! ELEMENT customer(customer_name customer_street customer_city)> <! ELEMENT depositor (customer_name account_number)> <! ELEMENT account_number (#PCDATA)> <! ELEMENT branch_name (#PCDATA)> <! ELEMENT balance(#PCDATA)> <! ELEMENT customer_name(#PCDATA)> <! ELEMENT customer_street(#PCDATA)> <! ELEMENT customer_city(#PCDATA)> ]> Bank DTD

27. Limitations of DTDs • No typing of text elements and attributes • All values are strings, no integers, reals, etc. • Difficult to specify unordered sets of subelements • Order is usually irrelevant in databases (unlike in the document-layout environment from which XML evolved) • (A | B)* allows specification of an unordered set, but • Cannot ensure that each of A and B occurs only once • IDs and IDREFs are untyped • The owners attribute of an account may contain a reference to another account, which is meaningless • owners attribute should ideally be constrained to refer to customer elements

28. XML Schema • XML Schema is a more sophisticated schema language which addresses the drawbacks of DTDs. Supports • Typing of values • E.g. integer, string, etc • Also, constraints on min/max values • User-defined, comlex types • Many more features, including • uniqueness and foreign key constraints, inheritance • XML Schema is itself specified in XML syntax, unlike DTDs • More-standard representation, but verbose • XML Scheme is integrated with namespaces • BUT: XML Schema is significantly more complicated than DTDs.

29. <xs:schema xmlns:xs=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema> <xs:element name=“bank” type=“BankType”/> <xs:element name=“account”><xs:complexType> <xs:sequence> <xs:element name=“account_number” type=“xs:string”/> <xs:element name=“branch_name” type=“xs:string”/> <xs:element name=“balance” type=“xs:decimal”/> </xs:squence></xs:complexType> </xs:element> …..definitions of customer and depositor …. <xs:complexTypename=“BankType”><xs:squence> <xs:element ref=“account” minOccurs=“0” maxOccurs=“unbounded”/> <xs:element ref=“customer” minOccurs=“0” maxOccurs=“unbounded”/> <xs:element ref=“depositor” minOccurs=“0” maxOccurs=“unbounded”/> </xs:sequence> </xs:complexType> </xs:schema> XML Schema Version of Bank DTD

30. Where we are in the course … • Fundamentals of Using a Database • Relational Model • SQL • Database Design • Application Design • Implementing a Database • System Architecture • Storage Structure and Indexing • Query Processing and Optimization • Transactions • Data Mining and Databases • Pattern and Association Mining • Information Retrieval Done!