Nest and Unnest Operators in Nested Relations

Abstract

By distinguishing nested attributes as Decomposable and Non-Decomposable, it is proved that for all nested relations, unnesting and then renesting on the same attribute yields the original relation subject only to the elimination of duplicate data. Therefore, the statement that was popular in nested relations research: "Unnesting and then nesting on the same attribute of a nested relation does not always yield the original relation" is reconsidered.

Keywords

• Non-First Normal Form database
• Nested relation
• Decomposable nested attribute