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Codd’S Rules

Vangie Beal
Last Updated May 24, 2021 7:38 am

Also called Codd’s Law, Codd’s Rules is a set of 13 rules used to determine if a DBMS can be considered a relational DBMS (RDBMS). In 1985, Dr. E. F. Codd first published this list of rules that became a standard way of evaluating a relational system. The rules have since been expanded by others, and after publishing the original article Codd stated that there are no systems that will satisfy every rule.

The following are Codd’s original 13 rules: