On the design of relational database schemata

The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach to the conceptual design of relational databases based on the complete relatability conditions (CRCs). It is shown that current database design methodology based upon the elimination of anomalies is not adequate. In contradistinction, the CRCs a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:ACM transactions on database systems 1981-03, Vol.6 (1), p.1-47
Main Authors: Zaniolo, Carlo, Meklanoff, Miachel A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The purpose of this paper is to present a new approach to the conceptual design of relational databases based on the complete relatability conditions (CRCs). It is shown that current database design methodology based upon the elimination of anomalies is not adequate. In contradistinction, the CRCs are shown to provide a powerful criticism for decomposition. A decomposition algorithm is presented which (1) permits decomposition of complex relations into simple, well-defined primitives, (2) preserves all the original information, and (3) minimizes redundancy. The paper gives a complete derivation of the CRCs, beginning with a unified treatment of functional and multivalued dependencies, and introduces the concept of elementary functional dependencies and multiple elementary multivalued dependencies. Admissibility of covers and validation of results are also discussed, and it is shown how these concepts may be used to improve the design of 3NF schemata. Finally, a convenient graphical representation is proposed, and several examples are described in detail to illustrate the method.
ISSN:0362-5915
1557-4644
DOI:10.1145/319540.319542