Using Learned Dependencies to Automatically Construct Sufficient and Sensible Editing Views

Databases ometimes have keys besides those pre-planned by the database designers. These are easy to discover given functional dependencies in the data. These superfluous keys are convenient ira user wishes to add data to a projection of the database. A key can be chosen that minimizes the attributes the user must edit. In a list format view, enough attribute columns are added to those specified by the user to ensure that a key is present. In a form view, enough extra text boxes are added. In this latter view, functional dependencies may als0"be used to visualize the dependencies between attributes by placing independent attributes above dependent ones. This paper briefly reviews an algorithm for inducing functional dependencies, and then it demonstrates methods for finding keys, constructing list views, and laying out form views.