The universal relation assumption in relational databases states that one can place all data attributes into a (possibly very wide) table, which may then be decomposed into smaller tables as needed.I. T. Hawryszkiewycz, Database analysis and design, 1984. , pages 59–62.
However, the assumption that a single large table can capture real database designs is often plagued with a number of difficulties.Carlo Zaniolo, Advances in database technology--EDBT 2000, 2000. , page 276 The "nested universal relation" model has attempted to address some of the problems and offer improvements.Mark Levene, The nested universal relation database model, 2000. , pages 1–5.
References
External links Who won the Universal Relation wars? by Alberto Mendelzon