Difference between BCNF and 4NF in DBMS

1. Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF) :
Any relation is said to be in the BCNF if and only if it satisfies the following condition :

• For every Functional Dependency (FD) X->Y, X is SuperKey in given relation.

2. 4th Normal Form (4NF) :
Any relation is said to be in the fourth normal form when it satisfies the following conditions :

• It must be in Boyce Codd Normal Form (BCNF).
• It should have no multi-valued dependency.

A multi-valued dependency is said to occur when there are two attributes in a table which depend on a third attribute but are independent of each other. In order to denote a multi-valued dependency, “->->” this sign is used.

Difference between BCNF and 4NF :

S.No.	BCNF	4NF
1	A relation in BCNF must also be in 3NF.	A relation in 4NF must also be in Boyce Codd Normal Form (BCNF).
2	A relation in BCNF may have multi-valued dependency.	<A relation in 4NF must not have any multi-valued dependency.
3	A relation in BCNF may or may not be in 4NF.	A relation in 4NF is always in BCNF.
4	BCNF is less stronger in comparison to 4NF.	4NF is more stronger in comparison to BCNF.
5	If a relation is in BCNF then it will have more redundancy as compared to 4NF.	If a relation is in 4NF then it will have less redundancy as compared to BCNF .
6	If a relation is in BCNF then all redundancy based on functional dependency has been removed.	If a relation is in 4NF then all redundancy based on functional dependency as well as multi-valued dependency has been removed.
7	For a relation, number of tables in BCNF is less than or equal to number of tables in 4NF.	For a relation, number of tables in 4NF is greater than or equal to number of tables in BCNF.
8	Dependency preserving is hard to achieve in BCNF.	Dependency preserving is more hard to achieve in 4NF as compared to BCNF.
9	In real world database designing, generally 3NF or BCNF is preferred.	In real world database designing, generally 4NF is not preferred by database designer.
10	A relation in BCNF may contain multi-valued as well as join dependency.	A relation in 4NF may only contain join dependency.