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DB NOMILIZATION AND CONSTRAINTS

Database Normalization is a method for organizing data in a database to eliminate redundancy and anomalies during data operations. It involves multiple normal forms, each with specific rules to ensure data is logically stored and dependencies make sense. Without normalization, databases can face issues like data loss and inconsistencies due to insertion, update, and deletion anomalies.

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2 views9 pages

DB NOMILIZATION AND CONSTRAINTS

Database Normalization is a method for organizing data in a database to eliminate redundancy and anomalies during data operations. It involves multiple normal forms, each with specific rules to ensure data is logically stored and dependencies make sense. Without normalization, databases can face issues like data loss and inconsistencies due to insertion, update, and deletion anomalies.

Uploaded by

danielkioko2012
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Database Normalization is a technique of organizing the data

in the database. Normalization is a systematic approach of


decomposing tables to eliminate data redundancy(repetition)
and undesirable characteristics like Insertion, Update and
Deletion Anomalies. It is a multi-step process that puts data
into tabular form, removing duplicated data from the relation
tables.

Normalization is used for mainly two purposes,

 Eliminating redundant(useless) data.


 Ensuring data dependencies make sense i.e data is
logically stored.
The video below will give you a good overview of Database
Normalization. If you want you can skip the video, as the
concept is covered in detail, below the video.

Problems Without Normalization


If a table is not properly normalized and have data
redundancy then it will not only eat up extra memory space
but will also make it difficult to handle and update the
database, without facing data loss. Insertion, Updation and
Deletion Anomalies are very frequent if database is not
normalized. To understand these anomalies let us take an
example of a Student table.

rollno name branch hod office_tel

401 Akon CSE Mr. X 53337


402 Bkon CSE Mr. X 53337

403 Ckon CSE Mr. X 53337

404 Dkon CSE Mr. X 53337

In the table above, we have data of 4 Computer Sci. students.


As we can see, data for the fields branch, hod(Head of
Department) and office_tel is repeated for the students who
are in the same branch in the college, this is Data
Redundancy.

Insertion Anomaly

Suppose for a new admission, until and unless a student opts


for a branch, data of the student cannot be inserted, or else
we will have to set the branch information as NULL.

Also, if we have to insert data of 100 students of same


branch, then the branch information will be repeated for all
those 100 students.

These scenarios are nothing but Insertion anomalies.

Updation Anomaly

What if Mr. X leaves the college? or is no longer the HOD of


computer science department? In that case all the student
records will have to be updated, and if by mistake we miss
any record, it will lead to data inconsistency. This is Updation
anomaly.
Deletion Anomaly

In our Student table, two different informations are kept


together, Student information and Branch information.
Hence, at the end of the academic year, if student records
are deleted, we will also lose the branch information. This is
Deletion anomaly.

Normalization Rule
Normalization rules are divided into the following normal
forms:

1. First Normal Form


2. Second Normal Form
3. Third Normal Form
4. BCNF
5. Fourth Normal Form

First Normal Form (1NF)

For a table to be in the First Normal Form, it should follow the


following 4 rules:

1. It should only have single(atomic) valued


attributes/columns.
2. Values stored in a column should be of the same domain
3. All the columns in a table should have unique names.
4. And the order in which data is stored, does not matter.
In the next tutorial, we will discuss about the First Normal
Form in details.

Second Normal Form (2NF)

For a table to be in the Second Normal Form,

1. It should be in the First Normal form.


2. And, it should not have Partial Dependency.
To understand what is Partial Dependency and how to
normalize a table to 2nd normal for, jump to the Second
Normal Form tutorial.

Third Normal Form (3NF)

A table is said to be in the Third Normal Form when,

1. It is in the Second Normal form.


2. And, it doesn't have Transitive Dependency.
Here is the Third Normal Form tutorial. But we suggest you
to first study about the second normal form and then head
over to the third normal form.

Boyce and Codd Normal Form (BCNF)


Boyce and Codd Normal Form is a higher version of the
Third Normal form. This form deals with certain type of
anomaly that is not handled by 3NF. A 3NF table which does
not have multiple overlapping candidate keys is said to be in
BCNF. For a table to be in BCNF, following conditions must be
satisfied:

 R must be in 3rd Normal Form


 and, for each functional dependency ( X → Y ), X should
be a super Key.
To learn about BCNF in detail with a very easy to understand
example, head to Boye-Codd Normal Form tutorial.

Fourth Normal Form (4NF)

A table is said to be in the Fourth Normal Form when,

1. It is in the Boyce-Codd Normal Form.


2. And, it doesn't have Multi-Valued Dependency.
Here is the Fourth Normal Form tutorial. But we suggest
you to understand other normal forms before you head over
to the fourth normal form.

In this tutorial we will learn about the 1st(First) Normal Form


which is more like the Step 1 of the Normalization process.
The 1st Normal form expects you to design your table in such
a way that it can easily be extended and it is easier for you to
retrieve data from it whenever required.

In our last tutorial we learned and understood how data


redundancy or repetition can lead to several issues like
Insertion, Deletion and Updation anomalies and
how Normalization can reduce data redundancy and make
the data more meaningful.

If tables in a database are not even in the 1st Normal Form, it


is considered as bad database design.

Rules for First Normal Form


The first normal form expects you to follow a few simple rules
while designing your database, and they are:
Rule 1: Single Valued Attributes

Each column of your table should be single valued which


means they should not contain multiple values. We will
explain this with help of an example later, let's see the other
rules for now.

Rule 2: Attribute Domain should not change

This is more of a "Common Sense" rule. In each column the


values stored must be of the same kind or type.

For example: If you have a column dob to save date of births


of a set of people, then you cannot or you must not save
'names' of some of them in that column along with 'date of
birth' of others in that column. It should hold only 'date of
birth' for all the records/rows.
Rule 3: Unique name for Attributes/Columns

This rule expects that each column in a table should have a


unique name. This is to avoid confusion at the time of
retrieving data or performing any other operation on the
stored data.

If one or more columns have same name, then the DBMS


system will be left confused.

Rule 4: Order doesn't matters

This rule says that the order in which you store the data in
your table doesn't matter.

Time for an Example


Although all the rules are self explanatory still let's take an
example where we will create a table to store student data
which will have student's roll no., their name and the name of
subjects they have opted for.

Here is our table, with some sample data added to it.

roll_no name subject

101 Akon OS, CN

103 Ckon Java


102 Bkon C, C++

Our table already satisfies 3 rules out of the 4 rules, as all our
column names are unique, we have stored data in the order
we wanted to and we have not inter-mixed different type of
data in columns.

But out of the 3 different students in our table, 2 have opted


for more than 1 subject. And we have stored the subject
names in a single column. But as per the 1st Normal form
each column must contain atomic value.

How to solve this Problem?

It's very simple, because all we have to do is break the values


into atomic values.

Here is our updated table and it now satisfies the First Normal
Form.

roll_no name subject

101 Akon OS

101 Akon CN

103 Ckon Java


102 Bkon C

102 Bkon C++

By doing so, although a few values are getting repeated but


values for the subject column are now atomic for each
record/row.

Using the First Normal Form, data redundancy increases, as


there will be many columns with same data in multiple rows
but each row as a whole will be unique.

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