Description
1. Aims
This project aims to give you practice in
• reading and understanding a moderately large relational schema (MyMyUNSW)
• implementing SQL queries and views to satisfy requests for information
• implementing PLpgSQL functions to aid in satisfying requests for information
The goal is to build some useful data access operations on the MyMyUNSW database. A theme of
this project is “dirty data”. As I was building the database, using a collection of reports from UNSW’s
information systems and the database for the academic proposal system (MAPPS), I discovered that
there were some inconsistencies in parts of the data (e.g. duplicate entries in the table for UNSW
buildings, or students who were mentioned in the student data, but had no enrolment records, and,
worse, enrolment records with marks and grades for students who did not exist in the student data).
I removed most of these problems as I discovered them, but no doubt missed some. Some of the
exercises below aim to uncover such anomalies; please explore the database and let me know if you
find other anomalies.
2. How to do this project:
• read this specification carefully and completely
• familiarize yourself with the database schema (description, SQL schema, summary)
• make a private directory for this project, and put a copy of the proj2.sql template there
• you must use the create statements in proj2.sql when defining your solutions
• look at the expected outputs in the expected_qX tables loaded as part of the check.sql file
• solve each of the problems below, and put your completed solutions into proj2.sql
• check that your solution is correct by verifying against the example outputs and by using
the check_qX() functions
• test that your proj2.sql file will load without error into a database containing just the original
MyMyUNSW data
• double-check that your proj2.sql file loads in a single pass into a database containing just the
original MyMyUNSW data
3. Introduction
All Universities require a significant information infrastructure in order to manage their affairs. This
typically involves a large commercial DBMS installation. UNSW’s student information system sits
behind the MyUNSW web site. MyUNSW provides an interface to a PeopleSoft enterprise
management system with an underlying Oracle database. This back-end system (Peoplesoft/Oracle)
is often called NSS.
UNSW has spent a considerable amount of money ($80M+) on the MyUNSW/NSS system, and it
handles much of the educational administration plausibly well. Most people gripe about the quality
of the MyUNSW interface, but the system does allow you to carry out most basic enrolment tasks
online.
Despite its successes, however, MyUNSW/NSS still has a number of deficiencies, including:
• no waiting lists for course or class enrolment
• no representation for degree program structures
• poor integration with the UNSW Online Handbook
The first point is inconvenient, since it means that enrolment into a full course or class becomes a
sequence of trial-and-error attempts, hoping that somebody has dropped out just before you
attempt to enrol and that no-one else has grabbed the available spot.
The second point prevents MyUNSW/NSS from being used for three important operations that
would be extremely helpful to students in managing their enrolment:
• finding out how far they have progressed through their degree program, and what remains
to be completed
• checking what are their enrolment options for next semester (e.g. get a list
of suggested courses)
• determining when they have completed all of the requirements of their degree program and
are eligible to graduate
NSS contains data about student, courses, classes, pre-requisites, quotas, etc. but does not contain
any representation of UNSW’s degree program structures. Without such information in the NSS
database, it is not possible to do any of the above three. So, in 2007 the COMP9311 class devised a
data model that could represent program requirements and rules for UNSW degrees. This was built
on top of an existing schema that represented all of the core NSS data (students, staff, courses,
classes, etc.). The enhanced data model was named the MyMyUNSW schema.
The MyMyUNSW database includes information that encompasses the functionality of NSS, the
UNSW Online Handbook, and the CATS (room allocation) database. The MyMyUNSW data model,
schema and database are described in a separate document.
4. Setting Up
To install the MyMyUNSW database under your Grieg server, simply run the following two
commands:
$ createdb proj2
$ psql proj2 -f /home/cs9311/web/18s1/proj/proj2/mymyunsw.dump
If everything proceeds correctly, the load output should look something like:
SET
… a whole bunch of these
SET
CREATE EXTENSION
COMMENT
SET
CREATE DOMAIN
CREATE DOMAIN
CREATE DOMAIN
CREATE DOMAIN
CREATE TYPE
CREATE DOMAIN
… a whole bunch of these
CREATE DOMAIN
CREATE FUNCTION
CREATE FUNCTION
SET
SET
CREATE TABLE
… a whole bunch of these
CREATE TABLE
ALTER TABLE
ALTER TABLE
… a whole bunch of these
ALTER TABLE
Please carefully investigate any occurrence of ERROR during the load. The database loading should
take less than 60 seconds on Grieg, assuming that Grieg is not under heavy load. (If you leave your
project until the last minute, loading the database on Grieg will be considerably slower, thus
delaying your work even more. The solution: at least load the database Right Now, even if you don’t
start using it for a while.) (Note that the mymyunsw.dump file is 50MB in size; copying it under your
home directory or your /srvr directory is not a good idea).
If you have other large databases under your PostgreSQL server on Grieg or you have large files
under your /srvr/YOU/ directory, it is possible that you will exhaust your Grieg disk quota. In
particular, you will not be able to store two copies of the MyMyUNSW database under your Grieg
server. The solution: remove any existing databases before loading your MyMyUNSW database.
If you are running PostgreSQL at home, the file proj2.tar.gz contains copies of the
files: mymyunsw.dump, proj2.sql to get you started. You can grab the check.sql separately, once it
becomes available. If you copy proj2.tar.gz to your home computer, extract it, and perform
commands analogous to the above, you should have a copy of the MyMyUNSW database that you
can use at home to do this project.
A useful thing to do initially is to get a feeling for what data is actually there. This may help you
understand the schema better, and will make the descriptions of the exercises easier to understand.
Look at the schema. Ask some queries. Do it now.
Examples …
$ psql proj2
… PostgreSQL welcome stuff …
proj2=# \d
… look at the schema …
proj2=# select * from Students;
… look at the Students table …
proj2=# select p.unswid,p.name from People p join Students s on (p.id=s.id);
… look at the names and UNSW ids of all students …
proj2=# select p.unswid,p.name,s.phone from People p join Staff s on (p.id=s.id);
… look at the names, staff ids, and phone #s of all staff …
proj2=# select count(*) from Course_Enrolments;
… how many course enrolment records …
proj2=# select * from dbpop();
… how many records in all tables …
proj2=# … etc. etc. etc.
proj2=# \q
You will find that some tables (e.g. Books, Requirements, etc.) are currently unpopulated; their
contents are not needed for this project. You will also find that there are a number of views and
functions defined in the database (e.g. dbpop() and transcript() from above), which may or may not
be useful in this project.
Summary on Getting Started
To set up your database for this project, run the following commands in the order supplied:
$ createdb proj2
$ psql proj2 -f /home/cs9311/web/18s1/proj/proj2/mymyunsw.dump
$ psql proj2
… run some checks to make sure the database is ok
$ mkdir Project2Directory
… make a working directory for Project 2
$ cp /home/cs9311/web/18s1/proj/proj2/proj2.sql Project2Directory
The only error messages produced by these commands should be those noted above. If you omit any
of the steps, then things will not work as planned.
Notes
Read these before you start on the exercises:
• the marks reflect the relative difficulty/length of each question
• use the supplied proj2.sql template file for your work
• you may define as many additional functions and views as you need, provided that (a) the
definitions in proj2.sql are preserved, (b) you follow the requirements in each question on
what you are allowed to define
• make sure that your queries would work on any instance of the MyMyUNSW schema;
don’t customize them to work just on this database; we may test them on a different
database instance
• do not assume that any query will return just a single result; even if it phrased as “most” or
“biggest”, there may be two or more equally “big” instances in the database
• you are not allowed to use limit in answering any of the queries in this project
• when queries ask for people’s names, use the People.name field; it’s there precisely to
produce displayable names
• when queries ask for student ID, use the People.unswid field; the People.id field is an
internal numeric key and of no interest to anyone outside the database
• unless specifically mentioned in the exercise, the order of tuples in the result does not
matter; it can always be adjusted using order by. In fact, our check.sql will order your
results automatically for comparison.
• the precise formatting of fields within a result tuple does matter; e.g. if you convert a
number to a string using to_char it may no longer match a numeric field containing the same
value, even though the two fields may look similar
• develop queries in stages; make sure that any sub-queries or sub-joins that you’re using
actually work correctly before using them in the query for the final view/function
Each question is presented with a brief description of what’s required. If you want the full details of
the expected output, take a look at the expected_qX tables supplied in the checking script.
5. Tasks
Note that the mymyunsw.dump used in project 2 is different from that used in project 1, please
confirm that you load the correct database when you start your work.
Q1 (8 marks)
You may use any combination of views, SQL functions and PLpgSQL functions in this question.
However, you must define at least a PLpgSQL function called Q1.
Please write a PLpgSQL function Q1(course_id integer) that takes a course_id as
parameter and outputs two numbers: (1) among all the rooms in UNSW, the number of rooms
which can carry all the students enrolled in this course (i.e., rooms.capacity >= the total
number of students enrolled in this course); (2) among all the rooms in UNSW, the number of rooms
which can carry all the students enrolled in this course and also carry all the students in the
enrolment waitlist of this course (i.e., rooms.capacity >= the total number of students enrolled
in this course + the total number of students in the enrolment waitlist of this course).
You should use the following type definition and function header:
create type RoomRecord as (valid_room_number integer,
bigger_room_number integer);
create or replace function Q1(course_id integer) returns setof
RoomRecord…
Note:
(1). If a given course_id is not a valid UNSW course id, please throw an exception ‘INVALID
COURSEID’.
(2). All the students enrolled (in a given course) should be counted even though his/her mark is null.
Sample results (details can be found in check.sql):
proj2=#select * from q1(52491);
Q2 (8 marks)
You may use any combination of views, SQL functions and PLpgSQL functions in this question.
However, you must define at least a PLpgSQL function called Q2.
Please write a PLpgSQL function Q2(staff_id integer) that takes a staff’s id as parameter
and returns all teaching records of the given staff. Each transcript tuple should contain the following
information: cid, term, code, name, uoc, avg_mark, highest_mark, median_mark, totalEnrols.
You should use the following type definition for the transcript tuples:
create type TeachingRecord as (
cid integer, — course ID
term char(4), — semester code (e.g. 98s1)
code char(8), — UNSW-style course code (e.g. COMP1021)
name text, — corresponding subject name of the course
uoc integer, — units of credit of this course
average_mark integer, — the average of marks of this course
highest_mark integer, — the highest mark of this course
median_mark integer, — the median of marks of this course
totalEnrols integer, — the total number of students
enrolled in this course with non-null
mark
);
Note:
(1). If a given staff_id is not a valid UNSW staff id, please throw an exception ‘INVALID
STAFFID’.
(2). The average_mark and median_mark should be rounded to the nearest integer.
(3). A student whose mark is null should not be counted when you calculate the average_mark,
highest_mark, median_mark and totalEnrols.
(4). Ignore the teaching record where totalEnrols = 0.
(5). Return null value if the uoc is null.
You should use the following and function header:
create or replace function Q2(staff_id integer) returns setof
TeachingRecord…
Sample results (details can be found in check.sql):
proj2=#select * from q2(50413833);
Q3 (9 marks)
You may use any combination of views, SQL functions and PLpgSQL functions in this question.
However, you must define at least a PLpgSQL function called Q3.
Given the id of an organizational unit, please write a PLpgSQL function Q3 (org_id integer,
num_courses integer, min_score integer) to help the UNSW administrative
officers to find out all the students satisfying the following: (1) he/she has taken more than
num_courses courses offered by the given organization (note that a student may fail a course and
take it again, thus we need to count duplicate courses); (2) he/she has got score no less than
min_score for at least one course offered by the given organization. Each tuple should include:
• His/Her unswid (should be taken from People.unswid)
• His/Her student_name (should be taken from People.name)
• His/Her course_records
course_records of a student is a concatenation of several records with ‘,’. Each record is about
a course he/she has taken and is offered by the given organization. Each record should include the
code of the course (Subjects.code), the name of the course (Subjects.name), the semester
that he/she has learned this course (Semesters.name), the name of the organization that offers
the course (OrgUnits.name), and the score he/she got (Course_enrolments.mark).
Note:
(1). If a given OrgUnits.id is not a valid UNSW organization id, please throw an exception
‘INVALID ORGID’.
(2). A given organization may have lots of sub-organizations. For example, the faculty of engineering
has 9 schools, such as biomedical engineering and CSE, and each school may have several divisions
or departments. You need to include all the sub-organizations recursively.
(3). Course records of a student should be sorted in descending order of score (null score value
should always be sorted to the end and displayed as ‘null’). If two or more course records have
the same score, they should be sorted in ascending order of Courses.id. Records should be
concatenated by ‘\n’, so that each record will be displayed in a separate line.
(4). Please note that, for course_records, there is a space after each ‘,’. All text fields are
verified with exact text matching.
(5). Only the first five course records sorted in above order should be displayed. If the course
records of a student are less than five, all the course records should be displayed.
You should use the following type definition and function header:
create type CourseRecord as (unswid integer, student_name text,
course_records text);
create or replace function Q3(org_id integer, num_courses integer,
min_score integer) returns setof CourseRecord…
Sample results (details can be found in check.sql):
proj2=# select * from q3(52, 35, 100);
Note that PostgreSQL uses a ‘+’ character to indicate an end-of-line in its output (as well as printing
‘\n’).
6. Submission
You can submit this project by doing the following:
• The file name should be proj2.sql.
• Ensure that you are in the directory containing the file to be submitted.
• Type “give cs9311 proj2 proj2.sql”
• If you submit your project more than once, the last submission will replace the previous one
• To prove successful submission, please take a screenshot as assignment submission
manual shows and keep it by yourself.
• If you have any problems in submissions, please email to kai.wang@unsw.edu.au. You can
also ask questions about this project in our project online Q&A group, we will answer your
questions as soon as possible.
The proj2.sql file should contain answers to all of the exercises for this project. It should be
completely self-contained and able to load in a single pass, so that it can be auto-tested as follows:
• a fresh copy of the MyMyUNSW database will be created (using the schema
from mymyunsw.dump)
• the data in this database may be different from the database that you’re using for testing
• a new check.sql file will be loaded (with expected results appropriate for the database)
• the contents of your proj2.sql file will be loaded
• each checking function will be executed and the results recorded
Before you submit your solution, you should check that it will load correctly for testing by using
something like the following operations:
$ dropdb proj2 … remove any existing DB
$ createdb proj2 … create an empty database
$ psql proj2 -f /home/cs9311/web/18s1/proj/proj2/mymyunsw.dump … load the MyMyUNSW
schema and data
$ psql proj2 -f /home/cs9311/web/18s1/proj/proj2/check.sql … load the checking code
$ psql proj2 -f proj2.sql … load your solution
$ psql proj2
proj2=# select check_q1(); … check your solution to question1
proj2=# select check_q2(); … check your solution to question2
proj2=# select check_q3(); … check your solution to question3
proj2=# select check_all(); … check all your solutions to q1-q3
Note: if your database contains any views or functions that are not available in a file somewhere,
you should put them into a file before you drop the database.
If your code does not load without errors, fix it and repeat the above until it does.
You must ensure that your proj2.sql file will load correctly (i.e. it has no syntax errors and it contains
all of your view definitions in the correct order). If we need to manually fix problems with
your proj2.sql file in order to test it (e.g. change the order of some definitions), you will be fined via
half of the mark penalty for each problem.
In addition, make sure that your queries are reasonably
efficient. For each question, please output results within 60 seconds. This time restriction applies to
the execution of the ‘select * from check_Qn()’ calls. For each question, half of the total mark will be
deducted if your solution cannot output results within 60 seconds.
7. Late Submission Penalty
10% reduction for the 1st day, then 30% reduction.