Assignment 1 Clarifications and Corrections

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Jan 20, 2008 Relational Algebra Symbols and other clarifications

1. If you are using Microsoft Word to format your first assignment, you may download this Word document which contains some of the relational algebra symbols you will require.
2. Question 2:
   • Question 2.3 - First Name should just be name
   • Dates - To get the month for any date field, assume that there is a function called Month(date) that, when given a date, returns the number of the month (from 1 - 12) for that date.
   • ClassType - typeCode is a brief code, the description is the field that holds the full name of the class, eg. the description might be "tummy tightener" or "step" or "spinning" and the code may just be some short integer.
   • Steps - When providing your relational algebra solutions, you may want to produce your solution in steps and describe (in English) what you are trying to accomplish with each step. This will make it easier for the marker to understand your intent and to mark your answers.
   • For St. George Students: Q2.7 We will accept queries that compute either of the following:
     1: Find the names of instructors who taught a class the first time (start-date) any class was ever offered.
     2: Find the names of instructors who taught the first offering of a class (where a class is identified by its level and type and the first offering means the earliest start-date).