Question

Why is the maximum number of tuples in full outer join equal to m*n, where m is the number of attributes in one relation and n is the attribute count in other ?

Can someone give an example to illustrate this ?

Answer 1

Max no of tuple returned by Full outer join is same as no of tuples in Cartesian  Product i.e. m*n.

Comments

simply take two relations R(A,B,C) and S(D,E)and apply full outer join with D=E and suppose nothing is equal then obviously it will be converted to cartesian product,so maximum number of tuples will be m*n.

second case when in all the cases D=E then we will get in one of the relations all the tuples matched and remaining tuples from other relation then minimum number of tuples will be MAX(m,n).

---

When nothing is equal then condition evaluates to be false. then shouldn't it be $0$?

---

@arjun sir in all type of join operation the maximum number of tuple is M x N

Answer 2

Let it be any type of join.
Join means, apply Cross product then filter out some tuples based on condition.

Join is something like  Cross Product + Sigma

So when no attribute from any side matches, we do not get 0, we get m*n  tuples because of cross product.
We get 0 tuples when attributes match but no tuple satisfy the condition.

Hence it is clear that when no attribute from two relation match we get  m*n tuples from join.

Comments

i think this logic is completely wrong

Answer 3

First off, there is no relation between number of tuples in the result of outer join and the number of ATTRIBUTES.

Assuming you meant to say that m and n denotes the number of tuples in R and S where R and S are the relations that are being full outer joined, then the minimum possible number of tuples are max(m,n) and the maximum possible number of tuples are (m+n).

Eg-

TABLE R

A	B
1	x
2	y
3	z

 

Table S

C	D
4	g
5	h
6	i
7	j

 

Here if we perform (R outer full join S) then the result will be

R FULL JOIN S

A	B	C	D
1	x	NULL	NULL
2	y	NULL	NULL
3	z	NULL	NULL
NULL	NULL	4	g
NULL	NULL	5	h
NULL	NULL	6	i
NULL	NULL	7	j

This the maximum possible number of tuples that can be present in FULL JOIN, that is (m+n)

 

if I am mistaken please feel free to comment

Comments

it is  M x N you can google it

---

The maximum number of tuple you will get is M x N. You have not considered the join condition in this case. Join operation involves cartesian product of both the tables first which will give you M x N tuples. Now if all the tuples satisfies this join condition then, the maximum number of tuples you will get is M x N. 

Answer 4

the actual reason for this is – if you have two relation say R and S and suppose both share a common attribute A based on which they will be join then for join and we will get M x N tuples the worst case would be that if each tuple in m*n will satisfy the join condition. 

an example of this would be suppose R.A has all value 1 in every tuple of R and S.A too have all value of A as 1 

and join condition will be R.A = S.A then all the tuple will satisfy the condition