An Equivalence Between Relational Database Dependencies and a Fragment of Propositional Logic

Abstract

It is known that there is an eqmvalence between functional dependencies m a relatmonal database and a certain fragment of proposmonal logic Thins eqmvalence is extended to include both functional and multivalued dependencmes. Thus, for each dependency there is a corresponding statement m proposmonal logic. It ms then shown that a dependency (funcuonal or multivalued) is a consequence of a set of dependencies ff and only ff the corresponding proposiuonal statement ~s a consequence of the corresponding set of proposmonal statements. Examples are given to show that these techniques are valuable mn provmdmg much shorter proofs of theorems about dependencies than have been obtained by more tradmonal means It is shown that this eqmvalence cannot be extended to include either join dependencies or embedded multmvalued dependencies. © 1981, ACM. All rights reserved.