RELATIONAL DATABASE DESIGN

Relational Database Design

 First Normal Form

 Pitfalls in Relational Database Design
 Functional Dependencies
 Decomposition
 Boyce-Codd Normal Form
 Third Normal Form
 Multivalued Dependencies and Fourth Normal
Form
 Overall Database Design Process
Pitfalls in Relational Database Design

 Relational database design requires that we

find a “good” collection of relation schemas.
A bad design may lead to
 Repetition of Information.
 Inability to represent certain information.
 Design Goals:
 Avoid redundant data
 Ensure that relationships among attributes are
represented
 Facilitate the checking of updates for violation of
database integrity constraints.
Example
 Consider the relation schema:
Lending-schema = (branch-name, branch-city, assets,
customer-name, loan-number, amount)

 Redundancy:
 Data for branch-name, branch-city, assets are repeated for each loan that a branch
makes
 Wastes space
 Complicates updating, introducing possibility of inconsistency of assets value
Decomposition
 Null values
 Cannot store information about a branch if no loans exist
 Can use null values, but they are difficult to handle.

 Decompose the relation schema Lending-schema into:

Branch-schema = (branch-name, branch-city,assets)
Loan-info-schema = (customer-name, loan-number,
branch-name,
amount)
 All attributes of an original schema (R) must appear in
the decomposition (R1, R2):
R = R1  R2
 Lossless-join decomposition.
For all possible relations r on schema R
r = R1 (r) R2 (r)
Example of Non Lossless-Join Decomposition

 Decomposition of R = (A, B)
R1 = (A) R2 = (B)
A B A B

 1  1
 2  2
 1 B(r)
A(r)
r
A B
A (r) B (r)
 1
 2
 1
 2
Goal — Devise a Theory for the
Following

 Decide whether a particular relation R is in “good”

form.
 In the case that a relation R is not in “good” form,
decompose it into a set of relations {R1, R2, ..., Rn}
such that
 each relation is in good form
 the decomposition is a lossless-join decomposition

 Our theory is based on:

 functionaldependencies
 multivalued dependencies
Functional Dependencies

 Constraints on the set of legal relations.

 Require that the value for a certain set of attributes
determines uniquely the value for another set of
attributes.
 A functional dependency is a generalization of the
notion of a key.
Functional Dependencies (Cont.)

 Let R be a relation schema

  R and   R
 The functional dependency

holds on R if and only if for any legal relations r(R), whenever any two
tuples t1 and t2 of r agree on the attributes , they also agree on the
attributes . That is,
t1[] = t2 []  t1[ ] = t2 [ ]
 Example: Consider r(A,B) with the following instance of r.
1 4
1 5
3 7

 On this instance, A  B does NOT hold, but B  A does hold.

Functional Dependencies (Cont.)

 K is a superkey for relation schema R if and only if K  R

 K is a candidate key for R if and only if
 K  R, and
 for no   K,   R
 Functional dependencies allow us to express constraints that
cannot be expressed using superkeys. Consider the schema:
Loan-info-schema = (customer-name, loan-number,
branch-name, amount).
We expect this set of functional dependencies to hold:
loan-number  amount
loan-number  branch-name
but would not expect the following to hold:
loan-number  customer-name
Use of Functional Dependencies
 We use functional dependencies to:
 testrelations to see if they are legal under a given set
of functional dependencies.
 If a relation r is legal under a set F of functional
dependencies, we say that r satisfies F.
 specify constraints on the set of legal relations
 We say that F holds on R if all legal relations on R satisfy
the set of functional dependencies F.
 For example, a specific instance of Loan-schema may,
by chance, satisfy
loan-number  customer-name.
Functional Dependencies (Cont.)
 A functional dependency is trivial if it is satisfied by
all instances of a relation
 E.g.
 customer-name, loan-number  customer-name
 customer-name  customer-name
 In general,    is trivial if   
Closure of a Set of Functional
Dependencies

 Given a set F set of functional dependencies, there

are certain other functional dependencies that are
logically implied by F.
 E.g. If A  B and B  C, then we can infer that A
C
 The set of all functional dependencies logically
implied by F is the closure of F.
 We denote the closure of F by F+.
Arm Strong's Inference Rules/
axioms
 if   , then    (reflexivity)
 if   , then      (augmentation)
 if   , and   , then    (transitivity)

 If CG  H and CG  I => CG  HI
By “union rule”
 If CG->H then C->H and G->H by
decomposition rule.
 We can find all of F+ by applying Armstrong’s
Axioms:
 if   , then    (reflexivity)
 if   , then      (augmentation)
 if   , and   , then    (transitivity)

 These rules are

 sound (generate only functional dependencies that
actually hold) and
 complete (generate all functional dependencies that
hold).
Example

R = (A, B, C, G, H, I)
F={ AB
AC
CG  H
CG  I
B  H}
 some members of F
+

A H
 by transitivity from A  B and B  H
 AG I
 by augmenting A  C with G, to get AG  CG
and then transitivity with CG  I
 CG  HI
 from CG  H and CG  I : “union rule” can
be inferred from
 definition
of functional dependencies, or
 Augmentation of CG  I to infer CG  CGI,
augmentation of
CG  H to infer CGI  HI, and then transitivity
Procedure for Computing F+

 To compute the closure of a set of functional

dependencies F:

F+ = F
repeat
for each functional dependency f in F+
apply reflexivity and augmentation rules
on f
add the resulting functional
dependencies to F+
NOTE: We will see an alternative procedure
for this task later
for each pair of functional dependencies f1and f2 in
F+
if f1 and f2 can be combined using
transitivity
then add the resulting functional
dependency to F+
until F+ does not change any further
Closure of Functional Dependencies
(Cont.)
 We can further simplify manual computation
of F+ by using the following additional rules.
 If    holds and    holds, then    
holds (union)
 If     holds, then    holds and   
holds (decomposition)
 If    holds and     holds, then    
holds (pseudotransitivity)
The above rules can be inferred from Armstrong’s
axioms.
Closure of Attribute Sets
 Given a set of attributes  define the closure of 
under F (denoted by +) as the set of attributes that
are functionally determined by  under F:
   is in F+    +
 Algorithm to compute +, the closure of  under F
result := ;
while (changes to result) do
for each    in F do
begin
if   result then result := result  
end
Example of Attribute Set Closure
 R = (A, B, C, G, H, I)
 F = {A  B
AC
CG  H
CG  I
B  H}
 (AG)+
1. result = AG
2. result = ABCG (A  C and A  B)
3. result = ABCGH (CG  H and CG  AGBC)
4. result = ABCGHI (CG  I and CG  AGBCH)
 Is AG a candidate key?
1. Is AG a super key?
+
1. Does AG  R? == Is (AG)  R
2. Is any subset of AG a superkey?
+
1. Does A  R? == Is (A)  R
2. Does G  R? == Is (G)+  R
 Uses of Attribute Closure

There are several uses of the attribute closure

algorithm:
 Testing for superkey:

 To test if  is a superkey, we compute +, and check

if + contains all attributes of R.
 Testing functional dependencies
 To check if a functional dependency    holds (or,
in other words, is in F+), just check if   +.
  That is, we compute + by using attribute closure, and
then check if it contains .
 Is a simple and cheap test, and very useful

 Computing closure of F
 Foreach   R, we find the closure +, and for each S
 +, we output a functional dependency   S.
Canonical Cover
 Sets of functional dependencies may have
redundant dependencies that can be inferred from
the others
 Eg: A  C is redundant in: {A  B, B  C, A 
C}
 Parts of a functional dependency may be redundant
 E.g. on RHS: {A  B, B  C, A  CD} can be
simplified to
{A  B, B  C, A  D}
 E.g. on LHS: {A  B, B  C, AC  D} can be
simplified to
{A  B, B  C, A  D}
 Intuitively, a canonical cover of F is a
“minimal” set of functional dependencies
equivalent to F, having no redundant
dependencies or redundant parts of
dependencies
Extraneous Attributes
Consider a set F of functional dependencies and
the functional dependency    in F.
 Attribute A is extraneous in  if A  
and F logically implies (F – {  })  {( – A)
 }.
 Attribute A is extraneous in  if A  
and the set of functional dependencies
(F – {  })  { ( – A)} logically implies F.
 Note: implication in the opposite direction is
trivial in each of the cases above, since a
“stronger” functional dependency always
implies a weaker one
 Example: Given F = {A  C, AB  C }
B is extraneous in AB  C because {A 
C, AB  C} logically implies A  C (I.e.
the result of dropping B from AB  C).
 Example: Given F = {A  C, AB  CD}
C is extraneous in AB  CD since AB  C
can be inferred even after deleting C
Testing if an Attribute is Extraneous
 Consider a set F of functional dependencies and
the functional dependency    in F.
 To test if attribute A   is extraneous in 
1. compute ({} – A)+ using the dependencies in F
2. check that ({} – A)+ contains A; if it does, A is
extraneous
 To test if attribute A   is extraneous in 
1. compute + using only the dependencies in
F’ = (F – {  })  { ( – A)},
2. check that + contains A; if it does, A is extraneous
Canonical Cover

 A canonical cover for F is a set of dependencies Fc

such that
F logically implies all dependencies in Fc, and
 Fc logically implies all dependencies in F, and
 No functional dependency in Fc contains an extraneous
attribute, and
 Each left side of functional dependency in Fc is unique.
 To compute a canonical cover for F:
repeat
Use the union rule to replace any dependencies in F
1  1 and 1  2 with 1  1 2
Find a functional dependency    with an
extraneous attribute either in  or in 
If an extraneous attribute is found, delete it from  

until F does not change
 Note: Union rule may become applicable after some
extraneous attributes have been deleted, so it has to be re-
applied
 Example of Computing a Canonical
Cover
R = (A, B, C)
F = {A  BC
BC
AB
AB  C}
 Combine A  BC and A  B into A  BC

 Set is now {A  BC, B  C, AB  C}

 A is extraneous in AB  C
 Check if the result of deleting A from AB  C is implied by the other dependencies
 Yes: in fact, B  C is already present!
 Set is now {A  BC, B  C}
 C is extraneous in A  BC
 Check if A  C is logically implied by A  B and the other dependencies
 Yes: using transitivity on A  B and B  C.
 Can use attribute closure of A in more complex cases

 The canonical cover is: AB

BC
 Goals of Normalization
 Decide whether a particular relation R is in
“good” form.
 In the case that a relation R is not in “good” form,
decompose it into a set of relations {R1, R2, ..., Rn}
such that
 each relation is in good form
 the decomposition is a lossless-join decomposition

 Our theory is based on:

 functionaldependencies
 multivalued dependencies
Decomposition
 Decompose the relation schema Lending-schema into:
Branch-schema = (branch-name, branch-city,assets)
Loan-info-schema = (customer-name, loan-number,
branch-name, amount)
 All attributes of an original schema (R) must appear in the decomposition
(R1, R2):
R = R 1  R2
 Lossless-join decomposition.
For all possible relations r on schema R
r = R1 (r) R2 (r)
 A decomposition of R into R1 and R2 is lossless join if and only if at least
one of the following dependencies is in F+:
 R1  R2  R1
 R1  R2  R2
Example of Lossy-Join Decomposition

 Lossy-join decompositions result in

information loss.
 Example: Decomposition of R = (A, B)
A B R1 =A (A) R2 = (B)B
 1  1
 2  2
 1 B(r)
A(r)
r
A B
A (r) B (r)
 1
 2
 1
 2
Normalization Using Functional Dependencies

 When we decompose a relation schema R with a set of

functional dependencies F into R1, R2,.., Rn we want
 Lossless-joindecomposition: Otherwise decomposition
would result in information loss.
 No redundancy: The relations Ri preferably should be
in either Boyce-Codd Normal Form or Third Normal
Form.
 Dependency preservation: Let Fi be the set
of dependencies F+ that include only
attributes in Ri.
 Preferably the decomposition should be
dependency preserving, that is, (F1 
F2  …  Fn)+ = F+
Otherwise, checking updates for violation
of functional dependencies may require
computing joins, which is expensive.
Example
 R = (A, B, C)
F = {A  B, B  C)
 Can be decomposed in two different ways
 R1 = (A, B), R2 = (B, C)
 Lossless-join
decomposition:
R1  R2 = {B} and B  BC
 Dependency preserving

 R1 = (A, B), R2 = (A, C)

 Lossless-join
decomposition:
R1  R2 = {A} and A  AB
 Not dependency preserving
(cannot check B  C without computing R R)
Testing for Dependency
Preservation
 To check if a dependency  is preserved in a
decomposition of R into R1, R2, …, Rn we apply the
following simplified test (with attribute closure done
w.r.t. F)
 result =
while (changes to result) do
for each Ri in the decomposition
t = (result  Ri)+  Ri
result = result  t
 If result contains all attributes in , then the functional
dependency
   is preserved.
 We apply the test on all dependencies in F to check
if a decomposition is dependency preserving

 This procedure takes polynomial time, instead of the

exponential time required to compute F+ and (F1 
F 2  …  F n )+
Boyce-Codd Normal Form

A relation schema R is in BCNF with respect to a set F of functional

dependencies if for all functional dependencies in F+ of the form
 , where   R and   R, at least one of the following holds:

    is trivial (i.e.,   )
  is a superkey for R
Example

 R = (A, B, C)
F = {A  B
B  C}
Key = {A}
 R is not in BCNF
 Decomposition R1 = (A, B), R2 = (B, C)
 R1 and R2 in BCNF
 Lossless-join decomposition

 Dependency preserving
 Testing for BCNF
 To check if a non-trivial dependency  causes
a violation of BCNF
1. compute + (the attribute closure of ), and
2. verify that it includes all attributes of R, that is, it is a
superkey of R.
 Simplified test: To check if a relation schema R is in
BCNF, it suffices to check only the dependencies in
the given set F for violation of BCNF, rather than
checking all dependencies in F+.
 Ifnone of the dependencies in F causes a violation of
BCNF, then none of the dependencies in F+ will cause a
violation of BCNF either.
 However, using only F is incorrect when testing a
relation in a decomposition of R
 E.g. Consider R (A, B, C, D), with F = { A B, B C}
 Decompose R into R1(A,B) and R2(A,C,D)
 Neither of the dependencies in F contain only attributes from
(A,C,D) so we might be mislead into thinking R2 satisfies
BCNF.
 In fact, dependency A  C in F+ shows R2 is not in BCNF.
BCNF Decomposition Algorithm

result := {R};
done := false;
compute F+;
while (not done) do
if (there is a schema Ri in result that is not in BCNF)
then begin
let    be a nontrivial functional
dependency that holds on Ri
such that   Ri is not in F+,
and    = ;
result := (result – Ri )  (Ri – )  (,  );
end
else done := true;
Note: each Ri is in BCNF, and decomposition is lossless-join.
Example of BCNF Decomposition
 R = (branch-name, branch-city, assets,
customer-name, loan-number, amount)
F = {branch-name  assets branch-city
loan-number  amount branch-name}
Key = {loan-number, customer-name}
 Decomposition
 R1 = (branch-name, branch-city, assets)
 R2 = (branch-name, customer-name, loan-number,
amount)
 R3 = (branch-name, loan-number, amount)

 R4 = (customer-name, loan-number)

 Final decomposition
Testing Decomposition for BCNF

 To check if a relation Ri in a decomposition of R is

in BCNF,
 Either test Ri for BCNF with respect to the restriction of
F to Ri (that is, all FDs in F+ that contain only attributes
from Ri)
BCNF and Dependency
Preservation
It is not always possible to get a BCNF decomposition that is
dependency preserving

 R = (J, K, L)
F = {JK  L
L  K}
Two candidate keys = JK and JL
 R is not in BCNF
 Any decomposition of R will fail to
preserve
JK  L
Third Normal Form: Motivation
 There are some situations where
 BCNF is not dependency preserving, and
 efficient checking for FD violation on updates is
important
 Solution: define a weaker normal form, called Third
Normal Form.
 Allows some redundancy (with resultant problems; we
will see examples later)
 But FDs can be checked on individual relations without
computing a join.
 There is always a lossless-join, dependency-preserving
decomposition into 3NF.
Third Normal Form
 A relation schema R is in third normal form (3NF) if
for all:
   in F+
at least one of the following holds:
   is trivial (i.e.,   )
  is a superkey for R

 Each attribute A in  –  is contained in a candidate

key for R.
(NOTE: each attribute may be in a different candidate
key)
 If a relation is in BCNF it is in 3NF (since
in BCNF one of the first two conditions
above must hold).
 Third condition is a minimal relaxation of
BCNF to ensure dependency
preservation (will see why later).
3NF (Cont.)
 Example
 R = (J, K, L)
F = {JK  L, L  K}
 Two candidate keys: JK and JL
 R is in 3NF
JK  L JK is a superkey
LK K is contained in a candidate key
 BCNF decomposition has (JL) and (LK)
 Testing for JK  L requires a join
 There is some redundancy in this schema
 Equivalent to example in book:
Banker-schema = (branch-name, customer-name, banker-name)
banker-name  branch name
branch name customer-name  banker-name
Testing for 3NF
 Optimization: Need to check only FDs in F, need not
check all FDs in F+.
 Use attribute closure to check for each dependency
  , if  is a superkey.
 If  is not a superkey, we have to verify if each
attribute in  is contained in a candidate key of R
 this test is rather more expensive, since it involve finding
candidate keys
 testing for 3NF has been shown to be NP-hard

 Interestingly, decomposition into third normal form

(described shortly) can be done in polynomial time
3NF Decomposition Algorithm
Let Fc be a canonical cover for F;
i := 0;
for each functional dependency    in Fc do
if none of the schemas Rj, 1  j  i contains  
then begin
i := i + 1;
Ri :=  
end
if none of the schemas Rj, 1  j  i contains a
candidate key for R
then begin
i := i + 1;
Ri := any candidate key for R;
3NF Decomposition Algorithm
(Cont.)
 Above algorithm ensures:

 each relation schema Ri is in 3NF

 decomposition is dependency preserving and lossless-join
 Proof of correctness is at end of this file (click here)
Example
 Relation schema:
Banker-info-schema = (branch-name, customer-name,
banker-name, office-number)
 The functional dependencies for this relation
schema are:
banker-name  branch-name office-number
customer-name branch-name  banker-name
 The key is:
{customer-name, branch-name}
Applying 3NF to Banker-info-
schema
 The for loop in the algorithm causes us to
include the following schemas in our
decomposition:
Banker-office-schema = (banker-name,
branch-name,
office-number)
Banker-schema = (customer-name, branch-
name,
banker-name)

 Since Banker-schema contains a candidate key

for
Comparison of BCNF and 3NF
 It is always possible to decompose a relation into
relations in 3NF and
 the decomposition is lossless
 the dependencies are preserved

 It is always possible to decompose a relation into

relations in BCNF and
 the decomposition is lossless
 it may not be possible to preserve dependencies.
Comparison of BCNF and 3NF
(Cont.)
 Example of problems due to redundancy in 3NF
R = (J, K, L)J L K
F = {JK  jL,1 L l
1 kK}
1

j2 l1 k1
j3 l1 k1

null l2 k2

A schema that is in 3NF but not in BCNF has the problems of

 repetition of information (e.g., the relationship l1, k1)
 need to use null values (e.g., to represent the relationship
l2, k2 where there is no corresponding value for J).
Design Goals

 Goal for a relational database design is:

 BCNF.

 Lossless
join.
 Dependency preservation.

 If we cannot achieve this, we accept one of

 Lackof dependency preservation
 Redundancy due to use of 3NF
 Interestingly, SQL does not provide a direct
way of specifying functional dependencies
other than superkeys.
Can specify FDs using assertions, but they are
expensive to test
 Even if we had a dependency preserving
decomposition, using SQL we would not be
able to efficiently test a functional
dependency whose left hand side is not a
key.
Testing for FDs Across Relations
 If decomposition is not dependency preserving, we can have an extra
materialized view for each dependency   in Fc that is not preserved in the
decomposition
 The materialized view is defined as a projection on   of the join of the relations
in the decomposition
 Many newer database systems support materialized views and database system
maintains the view when the relations are updated.
 No extra coding effort for programmer.
 The functional dependency    is expressed by declaring  as a candidate
key on the materialized view.
 Checking for candidate key cheaper than checking   
 BUT:
 Space overhead: for storing the materialized view
 Time overhead: Need to keep materialized view up to date when
relations are updated
 Database system may not support key declarations on
materialized views
 Multivalued Dependencies

 There are database schemas in BCNF that do not

seem to be sufficiently normalized
 Consider a database
classes(course, teacher, book)
such that (c,t,b)  classes means that t is qualified to
teach c, and b is a required textbook for c
 The database is supposed to list for each course the
set of teachers any one of which can be the course’s
instructor, and the set of books, all of which are
required for the course (no matter who teaches it).
Multivalued Dependencies
(Cont.)

course teacher book

database Avi DB Concepts
database Avi Ullman
database Hank DB Concepts
database Hank Ullman
database Sudarshan DB Concepts
database Sudarshan Ullman
operating systems Avi OS Concepts
operating systems Avi Shaw
operating systems Jim OS Concepts
operating systems Jim Shaw

classes
 There are no non-trivial functional
dependencies and therefore the relation
is in BCNF
 Insertion anomalies – i.e., if Sara is a
new teacher that can teach database,
two tuples need to be inserted
(database, Sara, DB Concepts)
(database, Sara, Ullman)
 Multivalued Dependencies
(Cont.)
 Therefore, it is better to decompose
classes into:
course teacher
database Avi
database Hank
database Sudarshan
operating systems Avi
operating systems Jim
teaches
course book
database DB Concepts
database Ullman
operating systems OS Concepts
operating systems Shaw
text
We shall see that these two relations are in Fourth Normal Form (4NF)
Multivalued Dependencies (MVDs)
 Let R be a relation schema and let   R
and   R. The multivalued dependency
  
holds on R if in any legal relation r(R), for
all pairs for tuples t1 and t2 in r such that
t1[] = t2 [], there exist tuples t3 and t4 in
r such that:
t1[] = t2 [] = t3 [] = t4 []
t3[] = t1 []
t3[R – ] = t2[R – ]
t4 [] = t2[]
t4[R – ] = t1[R – ]
MVD (Cont.)
 Tabular representation of   
Example
 Let R be a relation schema with a set of attributes
that are partitioned into 3 nonempty subsets.
Y, Z, W
 We say that Y  Z (Y multidetermines Z)
if and only if for all possible relations r(R)
< y1, z1, w1 >  r and < y2, z2, w2 >  r
then
< y1, z1, w2 >  r and < y2, z2, w1 >  r
 Note that since the behavior of Z and W are
identical it follows that Y  Z if Y  W
Example (Cont.)

 In our example:
course  teacher
course  book
 The above formal definition is supposed to
formalize the notion that given a particular
value of Y (course) it has associated with it
a set of values of Z (teacher) and a set of
values of W (book), and these two sets are
in some sense independent of each other.
Use of Multivalued Dependencies

 We use multivalued dependencies in two

ways:
1.To test relations to determine whether they are
legal under a given set of functional and
multivalued dependencies
2.To specify constraints on the set of legal
relations. We shall thus concern ourselves only
with relations that satisfy a given set of
functional and multivalued dependencies.
Theory of MVDs
 From the definition of multivalued dependency, we
can derive the following rule:
 If   , then   
That is, every functional dependency is also a
multivalued dependency
 The closure D+ of D is the set of all functional and
multivalued dependencies logically implied by D.
 We can compute D+ from D, using the formal definitions
of functional dependencies and multivalued
dependencies.
 We can manage with such reasoning for
very simple multivalued dependencies,
which seem to be most common in practice
 For complex dependencies, it is better to
reason about sets of dependencies using
a system of inference rules (see Appendix
C).
Fourth Normal Form
 A relation schema R is in 4NF with respect to a set
D of functional and multivalued dependencies if
for all multivalued dependencies in D+ of the
form   , where   R and   R, at least
one of the following hold:
   is trivial (i.e.,    or    = R)
  is a superkey for schema R

 If a relation is in 4NF it is in BCNF

Restriction of Multivalued
Dependencies

 The restriction of D to Ri is the set Di consisting of

 All functional dependencies in D+ that include only
attributes of Ri
 All multivalued dependencies of the form
  (  Ri)
where   Ri and    is in D+
4NF Decomposition Algorithm

result: = {R};
done := false;
compute D+;
Let Di denote the restriction of D+ to Ri
while (not done)
if (there is a schema Ri in result that is not in
4NF) then
begin
let    be a nontrivial multivalued
dependency that holds
on Ri such that   Ri is not in Di, and
;
result := (result - Ri)  (Ri - )  (, );
end
else done:= true;
Note: each Ri is in 4NF, and decomposition is lossless-
join
Example
 R =(A, B, C, G, H, I)

F ={ A  B
B  HI
CG  H }
 R is not in 4NF since A  B and A is not a superkey for R
 Decomposition
a) R1 = (A, B) (R1 is in 4NF)
b) R2 = (A, C, G, H, I) (R2 is not in 4NF)
c) R3 = (C, G, H) (R3 is in 4NF)
d) R4 = (A, C, G, I) (R4 is not in 4NF)
 Since A  B and B  HI, A  HI, A  I
e) R5 = (A, I) (R5 is in 4NF)
f)R6 = (A, C, G) (R6 is in 4NF)
Further Normal Forms
 Join dependencies generalize multivalued
dependencies
 lead to project-join normal form (PJNF) (also called
fifth normal form)
 A class of even more general constraints, leads to
a normal form called domain-key normal form.
 Problem with these generalized constraints: are
hard to reason with, and no set of sound and
complete set of inference rules exists.