Uniform probabilistic generation of relation instances satisfying a functional dependency

Abstract

Software engineering includes the runtime evaluation of a prototype by experiments with carefully selected sample inputs. For the development of software intended to operate on relation instances for a given relational schema with a single functional dependency, we are then challenged to generate appropriate sample instances of increasing size. Moreover, studying the impact of varying the sizes of the attribute domains might be important. We focus on seeing uniformly distributed collections of sample instances to be appropriate. If the schema is normalized (in Boyce–Codd normal form with the left-hand side of the functional dependency forming a unique key), then a straightforward heuristic insertion procedure complies with our requirements. However, for a non-normalized schema (the left-hand side not forming a key), based on a complex combinatorial analysis and exploiting an algorithm for restricted integer partitions, we develop a sophisticated probabilistic procedure of high computational complexity for generating any element of such a collection with equal probability. Moreover, we demonstrate that simpler approaches based on uniform local selections, including the heuristic insertion procedure, fail to achieve global uniformity. The conceptual design and analysis are complemented by an experimental evaluation of a prototype implementation.