Can a relational database be automatically designed from its functional relationships? This paper proposes a method for synthesizing a relational scheme from a set of functional relationships among database attributes. This *synthesis* algorithm, ensures that the generated schema is in Codd's third normal form, containing the fewest possible number of relations. The synthesis is proposed by formulated the description of a relational database, as a set of functional relationships. The process includes a scheme, that results from this procedure, containing the fewest number of relations. The paper presents an effective procedure for performing such a synthesis and discusses problems with earlier attempts to construct a similar procedure. By utilizing *relational database* attributes, the importance of database structure is highlighted.
This article, appearing in ACM Transactions on Database Systems, is highly relevant to the journal's focus on database design and management. Given the journal's readership, this paper presents a practical solution for relational database synthesis, and further work on database designs.