Boyce Codd normal form (BCNF)

Boyce–Codd normal form is a normal form used in database normalization. It is a slightly stronger version of the third normal form. BCNF was developed in 1974 by Raymond F. Boyce and Edgar F. Codd to address certain types of anomalies not dealt with by 3NF as originally defined.

• A relation will be in Boyce Codd normal form ,if has no multi-valued dependency.
• For a dependency A → B, if for a single value of A, multiple values of B exists, then the relation will be a multi-valued dependency.

Example: Suppose there is an university wherein student opted in more than one subject . They store the data like this:

Functional dependencies in the table above:
stud_id -> stud_nationality
stud_subject -> {dept_type, sub_code}

Candidate key: {stud_id, stud_subject}

The table is not in BCNF as neither stud_id nor stud_subject alone are keys.

To convert the given table into BCNF, we decompose it into three tables:
stud_nationality table:

stud_subject table:

stud_subject_mapping table:

Functional dependencies:
stud_id -> stud_nationality
stud_code -> {dept_type, sub_code}

Candidate keys:
For first table: stud_id
For second table: stud_subject
For third table: {stud_id, stud_subject}

This is now in BCNF as in both the functional dependencies left side part is a key.