5NF and other normal forms

5NF and other normal forms

5NF and other normal forms

Outline
n-decomposability 3D constraint join dependency 5NF non-5NF - update anomalies problems in bringing a relation to 5NF other normal forms
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5NF and other normal forms

Always two projections?

so far every relation was non-loss decomposable into two projections
is this always possible?

n-decomposable relations

5NF and other normal forms

Courses - tutors - levels (CTL)

Course Databases Databases Programming Databases

Tutor M. Ursu M. Marman M. Ursu M. Ursu

Level Level3 Level2 Level2 Level2

5NF and other normal forms

CTL - 2 attribute projections

Course Databases Databases Tutor M. Ursu M. Harman

Programming M. Ursu

Tutor M. Ursu M. Harman M. Ursu

Level Level3 Level2

Level Level3 Level2 Level2

TL

CT

Course Databases Databases

CL Programming Level2
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5NF and other normal forms

CTL - 3-decomposable
the join of any two projections is not CTL; e.g:
join(CT, TL)
Course Databases Databases Databases Tutor M. Ursu M. Ursu M. Marman Level Level3 Level2 Level2 Level3 Level2

Extra!

Programming M. Ursu Programming M. Ursu

5NF and other normal forms

Constraint 3D
Let R be a degree 3 relation. IF (a, b, x) R AND (a, y, c) R AND (z, b, c) R THEN (a, b, c) R

5NF and other normal forms

Constraint 3D illustrated on the CTL relation

IF AND AND THEN tutor t1 teaches subject s1 level l1 studies subject s1 tutor t1 teaches level l1 tutor t1 teaches subject s1 for level l1

note: this constraint is not expressed in CTL

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5NF and other normal forms

Constraint 3D and Join Dependency

4NF does not express the constraint 3D the constraint 3D is a facet of a more general constraint: join dependency

5NF and other normal forms

Join dependency
Let R be a relation. Let A, B, ..., Z be arbitrary subsets of Rs attributes. R satisfies the JD ( A, B, ..., Z ) if and only if R is equal to the join of its projections on A, B, ..., Z

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5NF and other normal forms

5 NF
R is in 5NF if and only if every join dependency in R is implied by the candidate keys of R
5NF is always achievable

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5NF and other normal forms

Explanation
a join dependency, (A, B, , Z), is implied by the candidate keys, K1, , Km of R if the fact that K1, , Km are candidate keys for R determine the fact that R has the JD (A, B, , Z)

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5NF and other normal forms

Illustration - positive example

consider R (S_id, S_name, Status, City) with S_id and S_name candidate keys

({S_id, S_name, Status}, {S_id, City}) is a JD because S_id is a candidate key in R ({S_id, S_name}, {S_id, Status}, {S_name, City}) is a JD because S_id and S_name are both candidate keys in R

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5NF and other normal forms

Illustration - negative example

consider CTL (Course, Tutor, Level) with (Course, Tutor, Level) - candidate key (and an extra constraint : constraint 3D) ({Course, Tutor}, {Course, Level}, {Tutor, Level}) is a JD, but this is not due to the CK, but to the constraint 3D if CTL had not had constraint 3D, would it have been in 5NF?

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5NF and other normal forms

Not 5NF - update anomalies

CTL satisfies
( {Course, Tutor}, {Tutor, Level}, {Course, Level} )

insert (Programming, M. Ursu, Level2) what else must be done?

Course Databases Databases Tutor M. Ursu M. Marman Level Level3 Level2

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5NF and other normal forms

Not 5NF - update anomalies

CTL satisfies the same JD as before delete (Databases, M. Ursu, Level2) what else must be done?
Course Databases Databases Programming Databases Tutor M. Ursu M. Marman M. Ursu M. Ursu Level Level3 Level2 Level2 Level2
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5NF and other normal forms

JDs and MVDs

Fagins theorem restated
R ( A, B, C ) satisfies ( AB, AC ) if and only if it satisfies the MVDs A B|C

JD is the most general form of dependency (read as determination) possible between the attributes of a relation (in the relational model)

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5NF and other normal forms

Activity
Is 4NF subsumed by 5NF? Can you prove this using Fagins theorem and the definitions for 4 and 5 NF?

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5NF and other normal forms

Problems in bringing a relation to 5NF

check whether all JDs are implied by the candidate keys
Fagin : provides an algorithm for doing this for any relation, given all its JDs and all candidate keys

discover all JDs for a given relation

they do not have that intuitive meaning as FDs or MVDs

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5NF and other normal forms

Concluding remarks
5NF is the ultimate normal form with respect to projection / join 5NF is guaranteed to be free of all anomalies that can be eliminated via projections determining whether a relation is in 4NF but not in 5NF is still fuzzy
very rare in practice

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5NF and other normal forms

Recap
JD - a more general constraint than MD a relation can be in 4NF and have un-expressed JDs
this results in update anomalies

such a relation can be decomposed (via projection) into an equivalent set of 5NF relations a relation is 5NF if all its JDs are deducible from its candidate keys for a relation in 4NF but not in 5NF, an unexpressed JD is a possible decomposition (towards 5NF)

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5NF and other normal forms

Other normal forms

FDs, MVDs or JDs are not used domain-key normal form
R is in DK/NF if and only if every constraint of R is a logical consequence of domain constraints and (candidate) key constraints

restriction-union normal form

decomposing operator: restriction abusing the language it can be said that: this normalisation theory is orthogonal on the projection normalisation theory

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