Functional Dependencies and Incomplete Information.

Yannis Vassiliou: Functional Dependencies and Incomplete Information. VLDB 1980: 260-269

@inproceedings{DBLP:conf/vldb/Vassiliou80,
  author    = {Yannis Vassiliou},
  title     = {Functional Dependencies and Incomplete Information},
  booktitle = {Sixth International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, October
               1-3, 1980, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Proceedings},
  publisher = {IEEE Computer Society},
  year      = {1980},
  pages     = {260-269},
  ee        = {db/conf/vldb/Vassiliou80.html},
  crossref  = {DBLP:conf/vldb/80},
  bibsource = {DBLP, http://dblp.uni-trier.de}
}

Abstract

Functional dependencies play an important role in relational database design. They are defined in the context of a single relation which at all times must contain tuples with non-null entries. In this paper we examine an extension of the functional dependency interpretation to handle null values, that is, entries in tuples that represent incomplete information in a relational database. A complete axiomatization of inference rules for extended functional dependencies is also presented. Only after having such results is it possible to talk about decompositions and normalization theory in a context of incomplete information. Finally, we show that there are several practical advantages in using nulls and a weaker notion of constraint satisfiability.

ACM SIGMOD Anthology

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Sixth International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, October 1-3, 1980, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, Proceedings. IEEE Computer Society 1980
Contents

References

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