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Publication
ACM Transactions on Database Systems (TODS)
Paper
Multivalued Dependencies and a New Normal Form for Relational Databases
Abstract
A new type of dependency, which includes the well-known functional dependencies as a special case, is defined for relational databases. By using this concept, a new (“fourth”) normal form for relation schemata is defined. This fourth normal form is strictly stronger than Codd's “improved third normal form” (or “Boyce-Codd normal form”). It is shown that every relation schema can be decomposed into a family of relation schemata in fourth normal form without loss of information (that is, the original relation can be obtained from the new relations by taking joins). © 1977, ACM. All rights reserved. © 1977, ACM. All rights reserved.