The application of functional dependency theory to relational databases

Abstract

This paper examines three areas where the application of functional dependency theory to relational databases has had an impact. These areas are relational views, database translation and logical database design. The paper refines our earlier work on relational views in which the concepts of consistent and updatable views were proposed. In the area of database translation, it identifies six levels of information preserving relational transformations. Finally, a relational database design algorithm is proposed which combines the best features of the classical synthesis and decomposition approaches while avoiding their identified shortcomings. © 1982 The British Computer Society.