Logical database design with inclusion dependencies

Abstract

Classical data dependencies are oblivious to important constraints which may exist between sets of attributes occurring in different relation schemes. The authors study how inclusion dependencies can be used to model these constraints, leading to the design of better database schemes. A normal form called the inclusion normal form (IN-NF) is proposed. Unlike classical normal forms, the IN-NF characterizes a database scheme as a whole rather than the individual relation schemes. It is shown that a database scheme in IN-NF is always in improved third normal form, while the converse is not true. It is demonstrated that the classical relational design framework may be extended to facilitate the design of database schemes in IN-NF.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>