Chapter 10
Normalization
Pearson Education 2009
Chapter 14 - Objectives
The purpose of normalization.
How normalization can be used when
designing a relational database.
The potential problems associated with
redundant data in base relations.
The concept of functional dependency, which
describes the relationship between attributes.
The characteristics of functional dependencies
used in normalization.
Pearson Education 2009
Chapter 14 - Objectives
How to identify functional dependencies for a
given relation.
How functional dependencies identify the
primary key for a relation.
How to undertake the process of
normalization.
How normalization uses functional
dependencies to group attributes into relations
that are in a known normal form.
Pearson Education 2009
Chapter 14 - Objectives
How to identify the most commonly used
normal forms, namely First Normal Form
(1NF), Second Normal Form (2NF), and Third
Normal Form (3NF).
The problems associated with relations that
break the rules of 1NF, 2NF, or 3NF.
How to represent attributes shown on a form
as 3NF relations using normalization.
Pearson Education 2009
Purpose of Normalization
Normalization
is a technique for producing a
set of suitable relations that support the data
requirements of an enterprise.
Pearson Education 2009
Purpose of Normalization
Characteristics
of a suitable set of relations
include:
the minimal number of attributes necessary
to support the data requirements of the
enterprise;
attributes with a close logical relationship
are found in the same relation;
minimal redundancy with each attribute
represented only once with the important
exception of attributes that form all or part
of foreign keys.
Pearson Education 2009
Purpose of Normalization
The benefits of using a database that has a
suitable set of relations is that the database will
be:
easier for the user to access and maintain
the data;
take up minimal storage space on the
computer.
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How Normalization Supports Database
Design
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Data Redundancy and Update Anomalies
Major aim of relational database design is to
group attributes into relations to minimize
data redundancy.
Pearson Education 2009
Data Redundancy and Update Anomalies
Potential
benefits for implemented
database include:
Updates to the data stored in the database
are achieved with a minimal number of
operations thus reducing the opportunities
for data inconsistencies.
Reduction in the file storage space required
by the base relations thus minimizing costs.
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Data Redundancy and Update Anomalies
Problems
associated with data redundancy are
illustrated by comparing the Staff and Branch
relations with the StaffBranch relation.
Staff (staffNo, sName, position, salary, branchNo)
Branch (branchNo, bAddress)
StaffBranch (staffNo, sName, position, salary,
branchNo, bAddress)
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Data Redundancy and Update Anomalies
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Data Redundancy and Update Anomalies
StaffBranch relation has redundant data; the
details of a branch are repeated for every
member of staff.
In
contrast, the branch information appears
only once for each branch in the Branch
relation and only the branch number
(branchNo) is repeated in the Staff relation, to
represent where each member of staff is
located.
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Data Redundancy and Update Anomalies
Relations
that contain redundant information may
potentially suffer from update anomalies.
ANOMALIES: Errors that occur when we want to
update a table that contains redundant data.
Types of update anomalies include
Insertion
Deletion
Modification
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Update Anomalies - INSERTION
StaffBranch
relation
Insert new members
Insert new branch with no members of staff
Ok with Staff and Branch relation
Can insert new members directly into Staff
relation
Can insert new branch directly into Branch
relation
StaffBranch
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Update Anomalies - DELETION
StaffBranch
relation
Delete staff SA9
Information on branch B007 will be deleted
Staff
relation
Just delete staff SA9
StaffBranch
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Update Anomalies - MODIFICATION
StaffBranch
relation
Change address for branch B003
Need to update all rows related to B003
Branch
relation
Just change the address for B003
StaffBranch
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Update Anomalies
StaffBranch
relation decompose into Staff and
Branch relation
Two important properties associated with
decomposition of a larger relation into smaller
relations.
Lossless-join property
Dependency preservation property
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Lossless-join and Dependency Preservation
Properties
Two
important properties of decomposition.
Lossless-join property enables us to find any
instance of the original relation from
corresponding instances in the smaller
relations.
Dependency preservation property enables us
to enforce a constraint on the original
relation by enforcing some constraint on
each of the smaller relations.
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Functional Dependencies
Important
concept associated with normalization.
Functional
dependency describes relationship
between attributes.
For
example, if A and B are attributes of relation
R, B is functionally dependent on A (denoted A
B), if each value of A in R is associated with
exactly one value of B in R.
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Characteristics of Functional Dependencies
Property
of the meaning or semantics of the
attributes in a relation.
Semantics indicate how attributes relate to one
another and specify the functional dependencies
between attributes
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Characteristics of Functional Dependencies
Diagrammatic
representation.
functionally determines B
The determinant of a functional dependency refers
to the attribute or group of attributes on the lefthand side of the arrow.
A is the determinant of B
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An Example Functional Dependency
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Example Functional Dependency that holds
for all Time
Consider
the values shown in staffNo and
sName attributes of the Staff relation (see Slide
12).
Based
on sample data, the following functional
dependencies appear to hold.
staffNo sName
sName staffNo
StaffBranch
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Example Functional Dependency that holds
for all Time
However,
the only functional dependency that
remains true for all possible values for the
staffNo and sName attributes of the Staff
relation is:
staffNo sName
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Characteristics of Functional Dependencies
Determinants
should have the minimal
number of attributes necessary to
maintain the functional dependency with
the attribute(s) on the right hand-side.
This
requirement is called full functional
dependency.
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Characteristics of Functional Dependencies
Full
functional dependency indicates that
if A and B are attributes of a relation, B
is fully functionally dependent on A, if B
is functionally dependent on A, but not
on any proper subset of A.
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Example Full Functional Dependency
Exists
in the Staff relation.
staffNo, sName branchNo (partial dependency)
True - each value of (staffNo, sName) is associated
with a single value of branchNo.
However, branchNo is also functionally dependent
on a subset of (staffNo, sName), namely staffNo.
Example above is a partial dependency.
staffNo
branchNo (Full Functional Dependency)
StaffBranch
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Characteristics of Functional Dependencies
Main
characteristics of functional dependencies
used in normalization:
There is a one-to-one relationship between the
attribute(s) on the left-hand side (determinant)
and those on the right-hand side of a functional
dependency.
Holds for all time.
The determinant has the minimal number of
attributes necessary to maintain the dependency
with the attribute(s) on the right hand-side.
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Transitive Dependencies
Important
to recognize a transitive dependency
because its existence in a relation can potentially
cause update anomalies.
Transitive
dependency describes a condition where
A, B, and C are attributes of a relation such that if
A B and B C, then C is transitively dependent
on A via B (provided that A is not functionally
dependent on B or C).
AB
BC
AC
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Pearson Education 2009
Example Transitive Dependency
Consider
functional dependencies in the
StaffBranch relation
staffNo sName, position, salary, branchNo,
bAddress
branchNo bAddress
dependency, branchNo bAddress
exists on staffNo via branchNo.
Transitive
StaffBranch
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The Process of Normalization
Formal technique for analyzing a relation
based on its primary key and the functional
dependencies between the attributes of that
relation.
Often executed as a series of steps. Each step
corresponds to a specific normal form, which
has known properties.
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Identifying Functional Dependencies
Identifying
all functional dependencies
between a set of attributes is relatively simple if
the meaning of each attribute and the
relationships between the attributes are well
understood.
This
information should be provided by the
enterprise in the form of discussions with users
and/or documentation such as the users
requirements specification.
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Identifying Functional Dependencies
However,
if the users are unavailable for
consultation and/or the documentation is
incomplete then depending on the database
application it may be necessary for the
database designer to use their common sense
and/or experience to provide the missing
information.
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Example - Identifying a set of functional
dependencies for the StaffBranch relation
Examine
semantics of attributes in
StaffBranch relation (see Slide 12). Assume
that position held and branch determine a
member of staffs salary.
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Example - Identifying a set of functional
dependencies for the StaffBranch relation
With
sufficient information available, identify the
functional dependencies for the StaffBranch
relation as:
staffNo sName, position, salary, branchNo,
bAddress
branchNo bAddress
bAddress branchNo
branchNo, position salary
bAddress, position salary
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Example - Using sample data to identify
functional dependencies.
Consider
the data for attributes denoted A, B,
C, D, and E in the Sample relation (see Slide
38).
Important
to establish that sample data values
shown in relation are representative of all
possible values that can be held by attributes
A, B, C, D, and E. Assume true despite the
relatively small amount of data shown in this
relation.
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Example - Using sample data to identify
functional dependencies.
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Example - Using sample data to identify
functional dependencies.
Function
dependencies between attributes A to
E in the Sample relation.
AC
CA
B D
A, B E
B, C E
(fd1)
(fd2)
(fd3)
(fd4)
(fd5)
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Identifying the Primary Key for a Relation
using Functional Dependencies
Main
purpose of identifying a set of functional
dependencies for a relation is to specify the set
of integrity constraints that must hold on a
relation.
An
important integrity constraint to consider
first is the identification of candidate keys, one
of which is selected to be the primary key for
the relation.
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Example - Identify Primary Key for
StaffBranch Relation
StaffBranch
relation has five functional
dependencies (see Slide 36).
The
determinants are staffNo, branchNo,
bAddress, (branchNo, position), and
(bAddress, position).
To
identify all candidate key(s), identify the
attribute (or group of attributes) that uniquely
identifies each tuple in this relation.
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Example - Identifying Primary Key for
StaffBranch Relation
All
attributes that are not part of a candidate
key should be functionally dependent on the
key.
The
only candidate key and therefore primary
key for StaffBranch relation, is staffNo, as all
other attributes of the relation are functionally
dependent on staffNo.
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Example - Identifying Primary Key for
Sample Relation
Sample
relation has five functional
dependencies (see Slide 39).
The
determinants in the Sample relation are A,
B, C, (A,B) and (B,C). However, the only
determinant that functionally determines all
the other attributes of the relation is (A, B) and
(B,C)
(A,
B) & (B,C) is identified as the candidate
keys for this relation.
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The Process of Normalization
As normalization proceeds, the relations
become progressively more restricted
(stronger) in format and also less vulnerable to
update anomalies.
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The Process of Normalization
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The Process of Normalization
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Pearson Education 2009
Unnormalized Form (UNF)
A
table that contains one or more repeating
groups.
Repeating groups: an attribute or group of
attributes within a table that occurs with multiple
values for a single occurenceof the nominated key
attribute(s) for that table.
To create an unnormalized table
Transform the data from the information source
(e.g. form) into table format with columns and
rows.
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First Normal Form (1NF)
A relation in which the intersection of each row
and column contains one and only one value.
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UNF to 1NF
Nominate an attribute or group of attributes to
act as the key for the unnormalized table.
Identify the repeating group(s) in the
unnormalized table which repeats for the key
attribute(s).
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UNF to 1NF
Remove the repeating group by
Entering appropriate data into the empty
columns of rows containing the repeating
data (flattening the table).
Or by
Placing the repeating data along with a copy
of the original key attribute(s) into a
separate relation.
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Second Normal Form (2NF)
Based on the concept of full functional
dependency.
Full functional dependency indicates that if
A and B are attributes of a relation,
B is fully dependent on A if B is functionally
dependent on A but not on any proper
subset of A.
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Second Normal Form (2NF)
A relation that is in 1NF and every nonprimary-key attribute is fully functionally
dependent on the primary key.
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1NF to 2NF
Identify the primary key for the 1NF relation.
Identify the functional dependencies in the
relation.
If partial dependencies exist on the primary
key remove them by placing then in a new
relation along with a copy of their determinant.
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Third Normal Form (3NF)
Based on the concept of transitive dependency.
Transitive Dependency is a condition where
A, B and C are attributes of a relation such that
if A B and B C,
then C is transitively dependent on A through
B. (Provided that A is not functionally
dependent on B or C).
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Third Normal Form (3NF)
A relation that is in 1NF and 2NF and in which
no non-primary-key attribute is transitively
dependent on the primary key.
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2NF to 3NF
Identify the primary key in the 2NF relation.
Identify functional dependencies in the
relation.
If transitive dependencies exist on the primary
key remove them by placing them in a new
relation along with a copy of their dominant.
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General Definitions of 2NF and 3NF
Second
normal form (2NF)
A relation that is in first normal form and
every non-primary-key attribute is fully
functionally dependent on any candidate key.
Third
normal form (3NF)
A relation that is in first and second normal
form and in which no non-primary-key
attribute is transitively dependent on any
candidate key.
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StaffBranch Relation
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