5/16/25, 9:58 AM Introduction of 4th and 5th Normal Form in DBMS | GeeksforGeeks

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Introduction of 4th and 5th Normal Form in DBMS

Last Updated : 06 Nov, 2023

Aptitude Engineering
Two of Mathematics
the highest Discrete
levels Mathematics normalization
of database Sign In
Operating System areDB the fourth
normal form (4NF) and the fifth normal form (5NF). Multivalued
dependencies are handled by 4NF, whereas join dependencies are
handled by 5NF.

If two or more independent relations are kept in a single relation or we

can say multivalue dependency occurs when the presence of one or
more rows in a table implies the presence of one or more other rows in
that same table. Put another way, two attributes (or columns) in a table
are independent of one another, but both depend on a third attribute. A
multivalued dependency always requires at least three attributes
because it consists of at least two attributes that are dependent on a
third.

For a dependency A -> B, if for a single value of A, multiple values of B

exist, then the table may have a multi-valued dependency. The table
should have at least 3 attributes and B and C should be independent for
A ->> B multivalued dependency.

Example:

Person Mobile Food_Likes

Mahesh 9893/9424 Burger/Pizza

Ramesh 9191 Pizza

Person->-> mobile,
Person ->-> food_likes

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This is read as "person multi determines mobile" and "person multi

determines food_likes."
Note that a functional dependency is a special case of multivalued
dependency. In a functional dependency X -> Y, every x determines
exactly one y, never more than one.

Fourth Normal Form (4NF)

The Fourth Normal Form (4NF) is a level of database normalization
where there are no non-trivial multivalued dependencies other than a
candidate key. It builds on the first three normal forms (1NF, 2NF, and
3NF) and the Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF). It states that, in
addition to a database meeting the requirements of BCNF, it must not
contain more than one multivalued dependency.

Properties

A relation R is in 4NF if and only if the following conditions are

satisfied:

1. It should be in the Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF).

2. The table should not have any Multi-valued Dependency.

A table with a multivalued dependency violates the normalization

standard of the Fourth Normal Form (4NF) because it creates
unnecessary redundancies and can contribute to inconsistent data. To
bring this up to 4NF, it is necessary to break this information into two
tables.

Example: Consider the database table of a class that has two relations
R1 contains student ID(SID) and student name (SNAME) and R2
contains course id(CID) and course name (CNAME).

Table R1

SID SNAME

S1 A

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5/16/25, 9:58 AM Introduction of 4th and 5th Normal Form in DBMS | GeeksforGeeks

SID SNAME

S2 B

Table R2

CID CNAME

C1 C

C2 D

When their cross-product is done it resulted in multivalued

dependencies.

Table R1 X R2

SID SNAME CID CNAME

S1 A C1 C

S1 A C2 D

S2 B C1 C

S2 B C2 D

Multivalued dependencies (MVD) are:

SID->->CID; SID->->CNAME; SNAME->->CNAME

Join Dependency
Join decomposition is a further generalization of Multivalued
dependencies. If the join of R1 and R2 over C is equal to relation R then
we can say that a join dependency (JD) exists, where R1 and R2 are the
decomposition R1(A, B, C) and R2(C, D) of a given relations R (A, B, C,
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D). Alternatively, R1 and R2 are a lossless decomposition of R. A JD ⋈

{R1, R2, ..., Rn} is said to hold over a relation R if R1, R2, ....., Rn is a
lossless-join decomposition. The *(A, B, C, D), (C, D) will be a JD of R if
the join of joins attribute is equal to the relation R. Here, *(R1, R2, R3) is
used to indicate that relation R1, R2, R3 and so on are a JD of R. Let R is
a relation schema R1, R2, R3........Rn be the decomposition of R. r( R ) is
said to satisfy join dependency if and only if

Joint Dependency

Example:

Table R1

Company Product

C1 Pendrive

C1 mic

C2 speaker

C2 speaker

Company->->Product

Table R2

Agent Company

Aman C1

Aman C2

Mohan C1

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Agent->->Company

Table R3

Agent Product

Aman Pendrive

Aman Mic

Aman speaker

Mohan speaker

Agent->->Product

Table R1⋈R2⋈R3

Company Product Agent

C1 Pendrive Aman

C1 mic Aman

C2 speaker speaker

C1 speaker Aman

Agent->->Product

Fifth Normal Form/Projected Normal Form (5NF)

A relation R is in Fifth Normal Form if and only if everyone joins
dependency in R is implied by the candidate keys of R. A relation
decomposed into two relations must have lossless join Property, which

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ensures that no spurious or extra tuples are generated when relations

are reunited through a natural join.

Properties

A relation R is in 5NF if and only if it satisfies the following conditions:

1. R should be already in 4NF.

2. It cannot be further non loss decomposed (join dependency).

Example - Consider the above schema, with a case as “if a company

makes a product and an agent is an agent for that company, then he
always sells that product for the company”. Under these circumstances,
the ACP table is shown as:

Table ACP

Agent Company Product

A1 PQR Nut

A1 PQR Bolt

A1 XYZ Nut

A1 XYZ Bolt

A2 PQR Nut

The relation ACP is again decomposed into 3 relations. Now, the natural
Join of all three relations will be shown as:

Table R1

Agent Company

A1 PQR

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Agent Company

A1 XYZ

A2 PQR

Table R2

Agent Product

A1 Nut

A1 Bolt

A2 Nut

Table R3

Company Product

PQR Nut

PQR Bolt

XYZ Nut

XYZ Bolt

The result of the Natural Join of R1 and R3 over ‘Company’ and then the
Natural Join of R13 and R2 over ‘Agent’and ‘Product’ will be Table ACP.

Hence, in this example, all the redundancies are eliminated, and the
decomposition of ACP is a lossless join decomposition. Therefore, the
relation is in 5NF as it does not violate the property of lossless join.

Conclusion
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Multivalued dependencies are removed by 4NF, and join

dependencies are removed by 5NF.
The greatest degrees of database normalization, 4NF and 5NF, might
not be required for every application.
Normalizing to 4NF and 5NF might result in more complicated
database structures and slower query speed, but it can also increase
data accuracy, dependability, and simplicity.

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