DATABASE MANGEMENT

SYSTEMS
Relational Database Design

Dr Pardeep Kumar
 Overview Relational Database Design
• The goal of relational database design is to generate a set
of relation schemas that allows us to store information
without unnecessary redundancy, yet also allows us to
retrieve information easily.
• To determine whether a relation schema is in one of the
desirable normal forms, we need information about the
real-world enterprise that we are modeling with the
database.
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Features of Good Relational Designs

classroom(building, room number, capacity)
department(dept name, building, budget)
course(course id, title, dept name, credits)
instructor(ID, name, dept name, salary)
section(course id, sec id, semester, year, building, room number,
time slot id)
teaches(ID, course id, sec id, semester, year)
student(ID, name, dept name, tot cred)
takes(ID, course id, sec id, semester, year, grade)
advisor(s ID, i ID)
time slot(time slot id, day, start time, end time)
prereq(course id, prereq id)
Schema for the university database.
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Features of Good Relational Designs(Cont.)

Design Alternative: Larger Schemas
Suppose that instead of having the schemas instructor and department,
we have the schema:
inst dept (ID, name, salary, dept name, building, budget)

The inst dept table.

• Result is possible repetition of information

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Features of Good Relational Designs(Cont.)

Design Alternative: Smaller Schemas
• Suppose we had started with inst_dept. How would we know to split up
(decompose) it into instructor and department?
• Write a rule “if there were a schema (dept_name, building, budget), then
dept_name would be a candidate key”
• Denote as a functional dependency:
dept_name  building, budget
• In inst_dept, because dept_name is not a candidate key, the building and
budget of a department may have to be repeated.
• This indicates the need to decompose inst_dept
• Not all decompositions are good. Suppose we decompose
employee(ID, name, street, city, salary) into
employee1 (ID, name)
employee2 (name, street, city, salary)
• The next slide shows how we lose information -- we cannot reconstruct the
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Features of Good Relational Designs(Cont.)

Design Alternative: Smaller Schemas

Loss of information via a bad decomposition.

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Atomic Domains and First Normal Form

 Domain is atomic if its elements are considered to be indivisible units
 Examples of non-atomic domains:
 Set of names, composite attributes
 Identification numbers like CS101 that can be broken up into
parts
 A relational schema R is in first normal form if the domains of all
attributes of R are atomic
 Non-atomic values complicate storage and encourage redundant
(repeated) storage of data
 Example: Set of accounts stored with each customer, and set of
owners stored with each account
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Atomic Domains and First Normal

Form(Cont.)
 Atomicity is actually a property of how the elements of the domain are
used.
 Example: Strings would normally be considered indivisible
 Suppose that students are given roll numbers which are strings of
the form CS0012 or EE1127
 If the first two characters are extracted to find the department, the
domain of roll numbers is not atomic.
 Doing so is a bad idea: leads to encoding of information in
application program rather than in the database.
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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:
 functional dependencies
 multivalued dependencies
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Decomposition Using Functional Dependencies

a formal methodology for evaluating whether a relational
schema should be decomposed is based upon the
concepts of keys and functional dependencies.
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Keys and 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.
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Keys and 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.
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Keys and 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:
bor_loan = (customer_id, loan_number, amount ).
We expect this functional dependency to hold:
loan_number  amount
but would not expect the following to hold:
amount  customer_name
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Use of Functional Dependencies

 We use functional dependencies to:
 test relations 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.
 Note: A specific instance of a relation schema may satisfy a
functional dependency even if the functional dependency does not
hold on all legal instances.
 For example, a specific instance of loan may, by chance,
satisfy
amount  customer_name.
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Use of Functional Dependencies(cont.)

 A functional dependency is trivial if it is satisfied by all instances of
a relation
 Example:
 customer_name, loan_number  customer_name
 customer_name  customer_name
 In general,    is trivial if   
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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.
 For example: 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+.
 F+ is a superset of F.
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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 schema not in BCNF:

bor_loan = ( customer_id, loan_number, amount )

because loan_number  amount holds on bor_loan but loan_number is

not a superkey
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Decomposing a Schema into BCNF

 Suppose we have a schema R and a non-trivial dependency 
causes a violation of BCNF.
We decompose R into:
• (U  )
• (R-(-))
 In our example,
  = loan_number
  = amount
and bor_loan is replaced by
 (U  ) = ( loan_number, amount )
 ( R - (  -  ) ) = ( customer_id, loan_number )
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BCNF and Dependency Preservation

 Constraints, including functional dependencies, are costly to check in

practice unless they pertain to only one relation
 If it is sufficient to test only those dependencies on each individual
relation of a decomposition in order to ensure that all functional
dependencies hold, then that decomposition is dependency preserving.
 Because it is not always possible to achieve both BCNF and
dependency preservation, we consider a weaker normal form, known
as third normal form.
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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).
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Goals of Normalization
 Let R be a relation scheme with a set F of functional dependencies.
 Decide whether a relation scheme R is in “good” form.
 In the case that a relation scheme R is not in “good” form, decompose
it into a set of relation scheme {R1, R2, ..., Rn} such that
 each relation scheme is in good form
 the decomposition is a lossless-join decomposition
 Preferably, the decomposition should be dependency preserving.
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How good is BCNF?

 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).
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How good is BCNF? (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 Stallings
operating systems Pete OS Concepts
operating systems Pete Stallings
classes

 There are no non-trivial functional dependencies and therefore the

relation is in BCNF
 Insertion anomalies – i.e., if Marilyn is a new teacher that can teach
database, two tuples need to be inserted
(database, Marilyn, DB Concepts)
(database, Marilyn, Ullman)
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How good is BCNF? (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
This suggests the need for higher normal forms, such as Fourth
Normal Form (4NF), which we shall see later.
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Functional-Dependency Theory
 We now consider the formal theory that tells us which functional
dependencies are implied logically by a given set of functional
dependencies.
 We then develop algorithms to generate lossless decompositions into
BCNF and 3NF
 We then develop algorithms to test if a decomposition is dependency-
preserving
 Closure of a Set of Functional
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Dependencies
 Given a set F set of functional dependencies, there are certain other
functional dependencies that are logically implied by F.
 For example: 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+.
 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).
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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
 by augmenting CG  I to infer CG  CGI,
and augmenting of CG  H to infer CGI  HI,
and then transitivity
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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 +
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

NOTE: We shall see an alternative procedure for this task later

 Closure of Functional Dependencies
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(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.
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Closure of Attribute Sets
 Given a set of attributes a, define the closure of a under F (denoted by
a+) as the set of attributes that are functionally determined by a under
F

 Algorithm to compute a+, the closure of a under F

result := a;
while (changes to result) do
for each    in F do
begin
if   result then result := result  
end
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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
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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
 For each   R, we find the closure +, and for each S  +, we
output a functional dependency   S.
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Canonical Cover
 Sets of functional dependencies may have redundant dependencies
that can be inferred from the others
 For example: A  C is redundant in: {A  B, B  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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Lossless-join Decomposition
 For the case of R = (R1, R2), we require that 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
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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 R1 R2)
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Dependency Preservation

 Let Fi be the set of dependencies F + that include only attributes in

Ri.
 A decomposition is dependency preserving, if
(F1  F2  …  Fn )+ = F +
 If it is not, then checking updates for violation of functional
dependencies may require computing joins, which is
expensive.
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Testing for Dependency Preservation

 To check if a dependency    is preserved in a decomposition of R into

R1, R2, …, Rn we apply the following test (with attribute closure done with
respect to 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  F2  …  Fn)+
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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
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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+.
 If none 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
 Consider R = (A, B, C, D, E), with F = { A  B, BC  D}
 Decompose R into R1 = (A,B) and R2 = (A,C,D, E)
 Neither of the dependencies in F contain only attributes from
(A,C,D,E) so we might be mislead into thinking R2 satisfies BCNF.
 In fact, dependency AC  D in F+ shows R2 is not in BCNF.
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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)
 or use the original set of dependencies F that hold on R, but with the
following test:
– for every set of attributes   Ri, check that + (the attribute
closure of ) either includes no attribute of Ri- , or includes all
attributes of Ri.
 If the condition is violated by some   in F, the dependency
 (+ - )  Ri
can be shown to hold on Ri, and Ri violates BCNF.
 We use above dependency to decompose Ri
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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.

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Example of BCNF Decomposition
 R = (A, B, C )
F = {A  B
B  C}
Key = {A}
 R is not in BCNF (B  C but B is not superkey)
 Decomposition
 R1 = (B, C)
 R2 = (A,B)
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Example of BCNF Decomposition
 Original relation R and functional dependency F
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
R1, R3, R4
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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
This implies that testing for JK  L requires a join
 DEPARTMENT PROFILE
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 (3NF)
 Allows some redundancy (with resultant problems; we will
see examples later)
 But functional dependencies can be checked on individual
relations without computing a join.
 There is always a lossless-join, dependency-preserving
decomposition into 3NF.
 DEPARTMENT PROFILE
3NF Example
 Relation R:
 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
 DEPARTMENT PROFILE
Redundancy in 3NF

 There is some redundancy in this schema

 Example of problems due to redundancy in 3NF
 R = (J, K, L)
F = {JK  L, L  K }

J L K
j1 l1 k1

j2 l1 k1

j3 l1 k1
null l2 k2
 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).
 DEPARTMENT PROFILE
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
 DEPARTMENT PROFILE
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;
end
return (R1, R2, ..., Ri)
 DEPARTMENT PROFILE
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:
cust_banker_branch = (customer_id, employee_id, branch_name, type )
 The functional dependencies for this relation schema are:
customer_id, employee_id  branch_name, type
employee_id  branch_name
 The for loop generates:
(customer_id, employee_id, branch_name, type )
It then generates
(employee_id, branch_name)
but does not include it in the decomposition because it is a subset of the
first schema.
 Comparison of BCNF and 3NF
 It is always possible to decompose a relation into a set of relations
that are in 3NF such that:
 the decomposition is lossless
 the dependencies are preserved
 It is always possible to decompose a relation into a set of relations that
are in BCNF such that:
 the decomposition is lossless
 it may not be possible to preserve dependencies.
 Design Goals
 Goal for a relational database design is:
 BCNF.
 Lossless join.
 Dependency preservation.
 If we cannot achieve this, we accept one of
 Lack of 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.
THANK YOU