Testing satisfaction of functional dependencies

Abstract

Determmmg whether a single relation satisfies a set of funcnonal dependencies is a straightforward task However, determining whether a set of relations sattsfies a set of functional dependencies is a more d~fficult problem Even the meaning of th~s notion of “satisfaction” needs to be settled Several definitions for sat~sfactton are considered, one of which is determmed to be most sound This definition requires that one can construct a single relatton that satisfies the dependencies while containing all of the information m the set of relations A polynomial-time algorithm as then developed to test satisfacnon using this definition. © 1982, ACM. All rights reserved.