4TH NORMAL FORM

By: Karen McVay

REVIEW OF NFs

 1NF  All values of the columns are

atomic. That is, they contain no
repeating values.

 2NF  it is in 1NF and every non-key

column is fully dependent upon the
primary key.
 REVIEW OF NF Cont…
 3NF  it is already in 2NF and every non-key column
is non transitively dependent upon its primary key. In
other words, all non-key attributes are functionally
dependent only upon the primary key.

 BCNF A relation is in BCNF if every determinant is a

candidate key. This is an improved form of third
normal form.
Determinant: an attribute on which some other attribute
is fully functionally dependent
 4th Normal Form

A Boyce Codd normal form relation is in

fourth normal form if

(a) there is no multi value dependency in

the relation or

(b) there are multi value dependency but

the attributes, which are multi value
dependent on a specific attribute, are
dependent between themselves.
4th Normal Form Cont…
This is best discussed through mathematical notation.

Assume the following relation

R(a:pk1, b:pk2, c:pk3)

Recall that a relation is in BCNF if all its determinant

are candidate keys, in other words each
determinant can be used as a primary key.
Because relation R has only one determinant (a, b,
c), which is the composite primary key and since
the primary is a candidate key therefore R is in
BCNF.
4th Normal Form Cont…
Now R may or may not be in fourth normal form.

1. If R contains no multi value dependency then R will be in

Fourth normal form.

2. Assume R has the following two-multi value dependencies:

a --->> b and a --->> c

In this case R will be in the fourth normal form if b and c

dependent on each other.
However if b and c are independent of each other then R is
not in fourth normal form and the relation has to be
projected to following two non-loss projections. These non-
loss projections will be in fourth normal form.
4th Normal Form Cont…

Many-to-many relationships

Fourth Normal Form applies to situations

involving many-to-many relationships.
In relational databases, many-to-many
relationships are expressed through
cross-reference tables.
Note about FDs and MVDs
 Every Functional Dependency is a MVD
(if A1A2…An  B1B2…Bn , then A1A2…An  B1B2…Bn )

 FDs rule out certain tuples (i.e. if A  B then

two tuples will not have the same value for
A and different values for B)

 MVDs do not rule out tuples. They

guarantee that certain tuples must exist.
Formal Definitions
 Fourth Normal Form
- if R is valid BCNF and…
- given the “non-trivial” MVD: A1A2…An  B1B2…Bn
{A1A2…An} is a superkey
 A MVD: A1A2…An  B1B2…Bn for a Relation R is “non-trivial”
if:
1. none of the Bs are among the As
2. Not all of the attributes of R are among the As and Bs

 A MVD is “trivial” if it contains all the variations of

A1A2…An x B1B2…Bn.

 A relation cannot be decomposed any further (under

4NF rules) if it has a trivial MVD
Example 1

Consider a case of class enrollment. Each

student can be enrolled in one or more
classes and each class can contain one or
more students.
Clearly, there is a many-to-many relationship
between classes and students. This
relationship can be represented by a
Student/Class cross-reference table:

{StudentID, ClassID}
Example 1 Cont…
 The key for this table is the combination of
StudentID and ClassID. To avoid violation of
2NF, all other information about each student
and each class is stored in separate Student
and Class tables, respectively.

 Note that each StudentID determines not a

unique ClassID, but a well-defined, finite set of
values. This kind of behavior is referred to as
multi-valued dependency of ClassID on
StudentID.
Example 2
 Consider another example with two many-to-many
relationships, between students and classes and
between classes and teachers.

* *
Students Classes

* *
Classes Teachers

Also,a many-to-many relationship between

students and teachers is implied.
Example 2 Cont…

 However, the business rules do not constrain this

relationship in any way—the combination of StudentID
and TeacherID does not contain any additional
information beyond the information implied by the
student/class and class/teacher relationships.

 Consequentially, the student/class and class/teacher

relationships are independent of each other—these
relationships have no additional constraints. The
following table is, then, in violation of 4NF:

{StudentID, ClassID, TeacherID}

4th NF and Anomalies

 As an example of the anomalies that can

occur, realize that it is not possible to add a
new class taught by some teacher without
adding at least one student who is enrolled
in this class.

 To achieve 4NF, represent each independent

many-to-many relationship through its own
cross-reference table.
4th Normal Form and anomalies
Cont…

Case 1:
Assume the following relation:
Employee (Eid:pk1, Language:pk2, Skill:pk3)

No multi value dependency,

therefore R is in fourth normal
form.
 4th Normal Form and
anomalies Cont…
case 2:
Assume the following relation with multi-value
dependency:

Employee (Eid:pk1, Languages:pk2, Skills:pk3)

Eid --->> Languages Eid --->> Skills

Languages and Skills are dependent.

This says an employee speak several languages and
has several skills. However for each skill a specific
language is used when that skill is practiced.
Thus employee 100 when he/she teaches
speaks English but when he cooks speaks
French. This relation is in fourth normal form
and does not suffer from any anomalies.

Eid Language Skill

100 English Teaching
100 Kurdish Politic
100 French Cooking
200 English Cooking
200 Arabic Singing
 4th Normal Form and
anomalies Cont…
case 3:
Assume the following relation with multi-
value dependency:

Employee (Eid:pk1, Languages:pk2, Skills:pk3)

Eid --->> Languages Eid --->> Skills

Languages and Skills are independent.

 4th Normal Form and
anomalies Cont…
This relation is not in fourth normal form and suffers
from all three types of anomalies.

Eid Language Skill

100 English Teaching
100 Kurdish Politic
100 English Politic
100 Kurdish Teaching
200 Arabic Singing
Insertion anomaly: To insert row (200 English Cooking) we
have to insert two extra rows (200 Arabic cooking), and
(200 English Singing) otherwise the database will be
inconsistent. Note the table will be as follow:

Eid Language Skill

100 English Teaching
100 Kurdish Politics
100 English Politics
100 Kurdish Teaching
200 Arabic Singing
200 English Cooking
200 Arabic Cooking
200 English Singing
 Deletion anomaly: If employee 100 discontinue politic
skill we have to delete two rows:

(100 Kurdish Politic), and (100 English Politic) otherwise

the database will be inconsistent.

Eid Language Skill

100 English Teaching
100 Kurdish Politics
100 English Politics
100 Kurdish Teaching
200 Arabic Singing
200 English Cooking
200 Arabic Cooking
200 English Singing
More anomalies

 Update anomaly: If employee 200

changes his skill from singing to
dancing we have to make changes
in more than one place.
The relation is projected to the following two non-loss
projections which are in forth normal form

Emplyee_Language(Eid:pk1, Languages:pk2)

Eid Language
100 English
100 Kurdish
200 Arabic
Cont…

Emplyee_Language(Eid:pk1, Skills:pk2)

Eid Skill
100 Teaching
100 Politic
200 Singing
References

Functional Dependency (Normalization)

http://www.emunix.emich.edu/~khaila
ny/files/Normalization.htm

Multivalued Dependencies (Ozmar Zaine):

http://www.cs.sfu.ca/CC/354/zaiane/materia
l/notes/Chapter7/node13.html