Functional and multivalued dependencies in nested databases generated by record and list constructor

The impact of the list constructor on two important classes of relational dependencies is investigated. Lists represent an inevitable data structure whenever order matters and data is allowed to occur repeatedly. The list constructor is therefore supported by many advanced data models such as genomic sequence, deductive and object-oriented data models including XML. The article proposes finite axiomatisations of functional, multivalued and both functional and multivalued dependencies in nested databases supporting record and list constructor. In order to capture different data models at a time, an abstract algebraic approach based on nested attributes is taken. The presence of the list constructor calls for a new inference rule which allows to infer non-trivial functional dependencies from multivalued dependencies. Further differences to the relational theory become apparent when the independence of the inference rules is investigated. The extension of the relational theory to nested databases allows to specify more real-world constraints and increases therefore the number of application domains. * Results of this article were partly presented at the 3rd International Symposium on Foundations of Information and Knowledge Systems (FoIKS), Vienna, Austria, 2004 [58], and the 23rd International Symposium on Principles of Database Systems (PODS), Paris, France, 2004 [54]. ** Sebastian Link was supported by Marsden Funding, Royal Society of New Zealand.