CS430 - Database Systems - Assignments

For Wednesday May 6th


1. Study for the final exam (2p on Wednesday).
2. Complete the course evaluation (you need to do this to take the final).
3. Complete your project as we discussed in class, including a write-up of what you did. Turn-in the write-up and a pointer to the code/schema before the exam on Wednesday.

For Thursday April 30th


1. Read sections 9.1, 9.2, 9.4, and 9.5 in AFCIDS. Some of this material will be on the final exam.
2. Work on your project per the plans we discussed in class.

For Tuesday April 28th


1. Results and write-up due for the Indexing Lab. Please turn-in a well rendered, printed report including your data and analysis.
2. Complete the specific items we discussed in class for your projects. Come to class prepared to demonstrate the new functionality.

For Thursday April 23rd


1. Results and write-up due for the Indexing Lab. Please turn-in a well rendered, printed report including your data and analysis.

For Tuesday April 21st


1. Work on the Indexing Lab. Come to class with questions, problems, etc. Re-reading the appropriate sections of chapter 8 may be very helpful for this lab.
2. Work on your project. Update your project's wiki page with accomplishments, to do items, and questions.

For Thursday April 16th


1. Read through the Indexing Lab and start working on it. Come to class with questions, problems, etc. Re-reading the appropriate sections of chapter 8 may be very helpful for this lab.
2. Complete exercise 8.4.1 (if you haven't already).
3. Dig-in and get to work on your projects. Come to class prepared to give a report on your project status, what you have done. Update your project's wiki page with accomplishments, to do items, and questions.

For Tuesday April 14th


1. Read through the Indexing Lab and start working on it. Come to class with questions, problems, etc. Re-reading the appropriate sections of chapter 8 may be very helpful for this lab.
2. Finish any exercises from chapter's 7 and 8 of AFCIDS that you haven't already.
3. Dig-in and get to work on your projects. Come to class prepared to give a 10 minute report on your project status, what you have done, and a one-paragraph description detailing what you will do over the next week or so.

For Thursday April 9th


1. (Re)-read pages 341 through 359 in chapter 8 of AFCIDS.
2. Exercises 7.5.2 (if you haven't already), 8.1.1 (a through c), 8.2.1, 8.2.3 (a), 8.3.1 (a through c) (if you haven't already), and 8.4.1.
3. Come to class prepared to give a 5 minute report on your project status, what you have done, and a one-paragraph description detailing what you will do over the next week or so.

For Tuesday April 7th


1. Read pages 341 through 359 in chapter 8 of AFCIDS.
2. Exercises 8.1.1 (a through c), 8.2.1, 8.2.3 (a), 8.3.1 (a through c)
3. Come to class prepared to give a 5 minute report on your project status, what you have done, what's next, questions.

For Thursday April 2nd


1. Read pages 328 through 339
2. Exercises 7.4.1 (a through d), 7.5.2 (a through c)
3. Come to class prepared to give a 5 minute report on your project status, what you have done, what's next, questions.

For Tuesday March 31st


1. Read pages 311 through 327 in chapter 7 of AFCIDS.
2. Exercises 7.1.1 (a through e), 7.1.3, 7.2.1 (a through c), 7.2.2 (a through c)
3. Come to class prepared to give a 5 minute report on your project status, what you have done, what's next, questions.

For Thursday March 26th


1. Read pages 291 through 306 in AFCIDS.
2. Exercise 6.6.1 - a through c (on paper)
3. Working with your paterner produce a 2-3 paragraph description of what you are going to do for your project and what the first concrete steps will be. As I said earlier you should budget for about 1/2 of the out of class time from after spring break until the end of the semester for the project.

For Tuesday March 24th


1. Write a test script that demonstrates the PostgreSQL defect you are working on.
2. Dig into the code and start figuring-out the fix. Come to class prepared to demonstrate your script, show us the code, and describe your fix. The finished project will be due on Thursday (along with some reading and exercises).
3. Think hard about either an individual project or a group project. Also consider if it should be something on the application side, e.g. a Cenus data based inquiry and visualization engine or an RDBMS internals project, such as one of the heftier items from the PostgreSQL To Do list.

For Thursday March 12th


1. Learn how to reliably start and stop your PostgreSQL instance on db-devel. If you have PATH problems, etc. get them resolved.
2. Complete any SQL statements from the previous assignments. Be ready to turn-in a pointer to the scripts that contain the SQL statements. This includes the second pass on 6.3.1.
3. Read pages 281 through 289 in AFCDS, exercise 6.4.1.
4. Choose one of the three defects to address in PostgreSQL (from the To Do page at http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Todo):
   • Report the schema along table name in a referential failure error message
   • Issue log message to suggest VACUUM FULL if a table is nearly empty?
   • Remove warnings created by -Wcast-align
5. Think about the Netflix contest (http://www.netflixprize.com) and come to class prepared to discuss the pros and cons of using it for a class project. Could just some of us participate? If not that what project do you want to work on (individually)?

For Tuesday March 10th


1. Read page 258 through 266, exercise 6.2.2 a,b,c
2. Read page 268 through 279, exercise 6.3.1 a,b,c,d
3. Find a simple defect in the Postgres To Do file, start by building a test script. Be prepared to demonstrate your script in class.
4. Think about a project for this class. This should involve a significant database component and a minimal user interface. The orginal Word On-Line and WebDB both started as projects in this class, think big. Your time budget is about 1/2 of the out of class time from after spring break until the end of the semester. Come to class prepared to describe your top two ideas for projects.

For Tuesday March 3rd


1. Summarize the main points related to database management systems from the interview with Jim Gray. Come to class with a question and/or observation to share with the class related to them.
2. Exercises 6.1.3, a through f, in a script which will run against your schema on db-devel and produce correct results. Send me an email pointer to the script when it's ready.
3. If you didn't complete the SQL queries from the last question of the mid-term exam do so.

For Thursday February 26th


1. Summarize the main points related to database management systems from the interview with Jim Gray. Come to class with a question and/or observation to share with the class related to them.
2. Read pages 243 - 268 in AFCIDS, this is mostly review given the assignments to-date. Come to class with questions about things that don't align with what you have learned using PostgreSQL.

For Tuesday February 24th


1. Mid-term exam.
2. Read the interview with Jim Gray on storage and summarize the main points. There will be one exam question based on it.

For Monday February 16th


1. Complete item 1 from Thursday February 12th. When that is done you should be able to use initdb, pg_ctl, and createdb respectively to initialize your database cluster, start your cluster, and create your first database.
2. Read pages 58 through 65 in chapter 2 of Ullman and Widom.
3. Exercises 2.5.1 a, b, and c; 2.5.2 a, b, and c
4. Review the chapter summaries from chapters 1 and 2. Come to class with questions, etc. The midterm will be in class on Tuesday February 24th.

For Thursday February 12th


1. Download and build PostgreSQL in your home directory on db-devel. Note these details:
   • Use the --prefix=/home/your-directory/pgsql option.
   • Use the --with-pgport=your-port-here option. Miki = 2001, Bryan = 3001, Dylan = 4001, Fitz = 5001, Charlie = 7001.
   Do a make, make check, and make install on your build. Make sure each completes correctly. When all this is done you should have a set of binaries, etc. in the correct place. You can find the tarball at http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/v8.3.6/
2. Exercise 2.4.1 h and i (algebra and SQL), exercises 2.4.5 and 2.4.7 (any that you didn't complete previously, be prepared to turn-in the whole lot).
3. Read pages 58 through 65 in chapter 2 of Ullman and Widom.
4. Exercises 2.5.1 a, b, and c; 2.5.2 a, b, and c

For Tuesday February 10th


1. Download and build PostgreSQL in your home directory on db-devel. Don't do the "install" step of the procedure, we need to talk about the details in-class on Tuesday before it will be safe to do that. You can find the tarball at http://www.postgresql.org/ftp/source/v8.3.6/
2. Exercise 2.4.1 h and i (algebra and SQL), exercises 2.4.5 and 2.4.7.
3. Read pages 58 through 65 in chapter 2 of Ullman and Widom.

For Thursday February 5th


1. Read and work-through the PostgreSQL SQL tutorial. You can find the tutorial's scripts in db-devel:/root/postgresql-8.3.5/src/tutorial
2. Exercise 2.4.1, a through e in SQL (using the data scripts I sent you).
3. Exercise 2.4.1, f and g in algebra and SQL (using the data scripts I sent you).

For Tuesday February 3rd


1. Exercise 2.4.1, a through e.
2. Read and work-through the PostgreSQL SQL tutorial. You can find the tutorial's scripts in db-devel:/root/postgresql-8.3.5/src/tutorial

For Thursday January 29th


1. Re-read pages 1 through 52 in Ullman and Widom.
2. Connect to the local Postgres instance and run your scripts for exercises 2.3.1 and 2.3.2. You will need to wrestle with Postgres SQL syntax vs the generic form the text uses. Follow the naming conventions and choices the book makes exactly.
3. Create a script of SQL insert statements that populates the PC database's relations with plausible data, at least 3 rows in each table. No such script is required for the warship database.
4. Create a script of SQL drop statements that clears the PC database of relations. No such script is required for the warship database.
5. Run your script that creates your tables and the script that populates your tables. Send me email when they are created and populated and I'll check them.

For Tuesday January 27th


1. Read pages 38 through 52 in chapter 2 of Ullman and Widom.
2. Think about your interests WRT database systems. Internals, applications, etc. Come to class prepared to talk about them.

For Thursday January 22nd


1. Subscribe to cs430@cs.earlham.edu, it's a standard listserv.
2. Read chapter 1 in the Ullman and Widom, 3rd Edition.
3. Read chapter 2 in Ullman and Widom, up to page 38.
4. Exercises 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3 (extra credit), 2.3.1 and 2.3.2. Typed or neatly done by hand, either way.