Abstract

We investigate the inference rules that can be applied to functional and multivalued dependencies that exist in a database relation. Three types of rules are discussed. First, we list the well known rules for functional dependencies. Ther, we investigate the rules for multi-valued dependencies. It is shown that fcr... ach rule for functional dependencies the same rule or a similar rule holds for nultivalued dependencies. There is, howc.ier, one additional rule for multi-valued dependencies that has no parallel amonq t5e rules for functional dependen-cies. Finally, we present rules that invo 1 ve func t iona 1 and mu ltivalued depeidencies together. The main result of the paper is that the rules presented are romplete for the family of function-al and multivalued dependencies. 1.

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