Normalization in DBMS: 1NF, 2NF, 3NF and

BCNF in Database
BY CHAITANYA SINGH | FILED UNDER: DBMS

Normalization is a process of organizing the data in database to avoid data

redundancy, insertion anomaly, update anomaly & deletion anomaly. Let’s
discuss about anomalies first then we will discuss normal forms with examples.

Anomalies in DBMS
There are three types of anomalies that occur when the database is not
normalized. These are – Insertion, update and deletion anomaly. Let’s take an
example to understand this.

Example: Suppose a manufacturing company stores the employee details in a

table named employee that has four attributes: emp_id for storing employee’s id,
emp_name for storing employee’s name, emp_address for storing employee’s
address and emp_dept for storing the department details in which the employee
works. At some point of time the table looks like this:

emp_id emp_name emp_address emp_dept

101 Rick Delhi D001

101 Rick Delhi D002

123 Maggie Agra D890

166 Glenn Chennai D900

166 Glenn Chennai D004

The above table is not normalized. We will see the problems that we face when a
table is not normalized.

Update anomaly: In the above table we have two rows for employee Rick as he
belongs to two departments of the company. If we want to update the address of
Rick then we have to update the same in two rows or the data will become
inconsistent. If somehow, the correct address gets updated in one department
but not in other then as per the database, Rick would be having two different
addresses, which is not correct and would lead to inconsistent data.

Insert anomaly: Suppose a new employee joins the company, who is under
training and currently not assigned to any department then we would not be able
to insert the data into the table if emp_dept field doesn’t allow nulls.

Delete anomaly: Suppose, if at a point of time the company closes the

department D890 then deleting the rows that are having emp_dept as D890
would also delete the information of employee Maggie since she is assigned only
to this department.

To overcome these anomalies we need to normalize the data. In the next section
we will discuss about normalization.

Normalization
Here are the most commonly used normal forms:

 First normal form(1NF)

 Second normal form(2NF)
 Third normal form(3NF)
 Boyce & Codd normal form (BCNF)
First normal form (1NF)
As per the rule of first normal form, an attribute (column) of a table cannot hold
multiple values. It should hold only atomic values.

Example: Suppose a company wants to store the names and contact details of
its employees. It creates a table that looks like this:

emp_id emp_name emp_address emp_mobile

101 Herschel New Delhi 8912312390

8812121212
102 Jon Kanpur

9900012222

103 Ron Chennai 7778881212

9990000123
104 Lester Bangalore 8123450987

Two employees (Jon & Lester) are having two mobile numbers so the company
stored them in the same field as you can see in the table above.

This table is not in 1NF as the rule says “each attribute of a table must have
atomic (single) values”, the emp_mobile values for employees Jon & Lester
violates that rule.

To make the table complies with 1NF we should have the data like this:
emp_id emp_name emp_address emp_mobile

101 Herschel New Delhi 8912312390

102 Jon Kanpur 8812121212

102 Jon Kanpur 9900012222

103 Ron Chennai 7778881212

104 Lester Bangalore 9990000123

104 Lester Bangalore 8123450987

Second normal form (2NF)

A table is said to be in 2NF if both the following conditions hold:

 Table is in 1NF (First normal form)

 No non-prime attribute is dependent on the proper subset of any candidate
key of table.

An attribute that is not part of any candidate key is known as non-prime attribute.
Example: Suppose a school wants to store the data of teachers and the subjects
they teach. They create a table that looks like this: Since a teacher can teach
more than one subjects, the table can have multiple rows for a same teacher.

teacher_id subject teacher_age

111 Maths 38

111 Physics 38

222 Biology 38

333 Physics 40

333 Chemistry 40

Candidate Keys: {teacher_id, subject}

Non prime attribute: teacher_age

The table is in 1 NF because each attribute has atomic values. However, it is not
in 2NF because non prime attribute teacher_age is dependent on teacher_id
alone which is a proper subset of candidate key. This violates the rule for 2NF as
the rule says “no non-prime attribute is dependent on the proper subset of any
candidate key of the table”.

To make the table complies with 2NF we can break it in two tables like this:
teacher_details table:
teacher_id teacher_age

111 38

222 38

333 40

teacher_subject table:

teacher_id subject

111 Maths

111 Physics

222 Biology

333 Physics
333 Chemistry

Now the tables comply with Second normal form (2NF).

Third Normal form (3NF)

A table design is said to be in 3NF if both the following conditions hold:

 Table must be in 2NF

 Transitive functional dependency of non-prime attribute on any super key
should be removed.

An attribute that is not part of any candidate key is known as non-prime attribute.

In other words 3NF can be explained like this: A table is in 3NF if it is in 2NF and
for each functional dependency X-> Y at least one of the following conditions
hold:

 X is a super key of table

 Y is a prime attribute of table

An attribute that is a part of one of the candidate keys is known as prime

attribute.

Example: Suppose a company wants to store the complete address of each

employee, they create a table named employee_details that looks like this:

emp_id emp_name emp_zip emp_state emp_city emp_district

1001 John 282005 UP Agra Dayal Bagh

1002 Ajeet 222008 TN Chennai M-City

1006 Lora 282007 TN Chennai Urrapakkam

1101 Lilly 292008 UK Pauri Bhagwan

1201 Steve 222999 MP Gwalior Ratan

Super keys: {emp_id}, {emp_id, emp_name}, {emp_id, emp_name, emp_zip}…

so on
Candidate Keys: {emp_id}
Non-prime attributes: all attributes except emp_id are non-prime as they are not
part of any candidate keys.

Here, emp_state, emp_city & emp_district dependent on emp_zip. And, emp_zip

is dependent on emp_id that makes non-prime attributes (emp_state, emp_city &
emp_district) transitively dependent on super key (emp_id). This violates the rule
of 3NF.

To make this table complies with 3NF we have to break the table into two tables
to remove the transitive dependency:

employee table:
emp_id emp_name emp_zip

1001 John 282005

1002 Ajeet 222008

1006 Lora 282007

1101 Lilly 292008

1201 Steve 222999

employee_zip table:

emp_zip emp_state emp_city emp_district

282005 UP Agra Dayal Bagh

222008 TN Chennai M-City

282007 TN Chennai Urrapakkam

292008 UK Pauri Bhagwan

222999 MP Gwalior Ratan

Boyce Codd normal form (BCNF)

It is an advance version of 3NF that’s why it is also referred as 3.5NF. BCNF is
stricter than 3NF. A table complies with BCNF if it is in 3NF and for
every functional dependency X->Y, X should be the super key of the table.

Example: Suppose there is a company wherein employees work in more than

one department. They store the data like this:

emp_id emp_nationality emp_dept dept_type dept_no_of_emp

1001 Austrian Production and planning D001 200

1001 Austrian stores D001 250

1002 American design and technical support D134 100

1002 American Purchasing department D134 600

Functional dependencies in the table above:

emp_id -> emp_nationality
emp_dept -> {dept_type, dept_no_of_emp}

Candidate key: {emp_id, emp_dept}

The table is not in BCNF as neither emp_id nor emp_dept alone are keys.

To make the table comply with BCNF we can break the table in three tables like
this:
emp_nationality table:

emp_dept table:

emp_dept_mapping table:

emp_id emp_dept

1001 Production and planning

1001 stores
 1002 design and technical support

1002 Purchasing department

Functional dependencies:
emp_id -> emp_nationality
emp_dept -> {dept_type, dept_no_of_emp}

Candidate keys:
For first table: emp_id
For second table: emp_dept
For third table: {emp_id, emp_dept}

This is now in BCNF as in both the functional dependencies left side part is a
key.

Fourth normal form (4NF)

o A relation will be in 4NF if it is in Boyce Codd normal form and has no multi-valued
dependency.
o For a dependency A → B, if for a single value of A, multiple values of B exists, then
the relation will be a multi-valued dependency.

Example
STUDENT

STU_ID COURSE HOBBY

21 Computer Dancing

21 Math Singing
34 Chemistry Dancing

74 Biology Cricket

59 Physics Hockey

The given STUDENT table is in 3NF, but the COURSE and HOBBY are two independent
entity. Hence, there is no relationship between COURSE and HOBBY.

In the STUDENT relation, a student with STU_ID, 21 contains two

courses, Computer and Math and two hobbies, Dancing and Singing. So there is a Multi-
valued dependency on STU_ID, which leads to unnecessary repetition of data.

So to make the above table into 4NF, we can decompose it into two tables:

STUDENT_COURSE

STU_ID COURSE

21 Computer

21 Math

34 Chemistry

74 Biology

59 Physics

STU_ID HOBBY

21 Dancing

21 Singing
 34 Dancing

74 Cricket

59 Hockey

STUDENT_

Rules for 4th Normal Form

For a table to satisfy the Fourth Normal Form, it should satisfy the following two
conditions:

1. It should be in the Boyce-Codd Normal Form.

2. And, the table should not have any Multi-valued Dependency.

Let's try to understand what multi-valued dependency is in the next section.

 What is Multi-valued Dependency?
A table is said to have multi-valued dependency, if the following conditions are true,

1. For a dependency A → B, if for a single value of A, multiple value of B exists,

then the table may have multi-valued dependency.
2. Also, a table should have at-least 3 columns for it to have a multi-valued
dependency.
3. And, for a relation R(A,B,C), if there is a multi-valued dependency between, A
and B, then B and C should be independent of each other.

If all these conditions are true for any relation(table), it is said to have multi-valued
dependency.

Relational Decomposition
o When a relation in the relational model is not in appropriate normal form then the
decomposition of a relation is required.
o In a database, it breaks the table into multiple tables.
o If the relation has no proper decomposition, then it may lead to problems like loss of
information.
o Decomposition is used to eliminate some of the problems of bad design like
anomalies, inconsistencies, and redundancy.

Types of Decomposition
 Lossless Decomposition
o If the information is not lost from the relation that is decomposed, then the
decomposition will be lossless.
o The lossless decomposition guarantees that the join of relations will result in the
same relation as it was decomposed.
o The relation is said to be lossless decomposition if natural joins of all the
decomposition give the original relation.

Example:

EMPLOYEE_DEPARTMENT table:

EMP_ID EMP_NAME EMP_AGE EMP_CITY DEPT_ID DEPT_NAME

22 Denim 28 Mumbai 827 Sales

33 Alina 25 Delhi 438 Marketing

46 Stephan 30 Bangalore 869 Finance

52 Katherine 36 Mumbai 575 Production

60 Jack 40 Noida 678 Testing

 The above relation is decomposed into two relations EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT

EMPLOYEE table:

EMP_ID EMP_NAME EMP_AGE EMP_CITY

22 Denim 28 Mumbai

33 Alina 25 Delhi

46 Stephan 30 Bangalore

52 Katherine 36 Mumbai

60 Jack 40 Noida

DEPARTMENT table

DEPT_ID EMP_ID DEPT_NAME

827 22 Sales

438 33 Marketing

869 46 Finance

575 52 Production

678 60 Testing
 Now, when these two relations are joined on the common column "EMP_ID", then the
resultant relation will look like: Employee ⋈ Department

EMP_ID EMP_NAME EMP_AGE EMP_CITY DEPT_ID DEPT_NAME

827
22 Denim 28 Mumbai Sales

33 Alina 25 Delhi 438 Marketing

46 Stephan 30 Bangalore 869 Finance

52 Katherine 36 Mumbai 575 Production

60 Jack 40 Noida 678 Testing

Hence, the decomposition is Lossless join decomposition.

Dependency Preserving
o It is an important constraint of the database.
o In the dependency preservation, at least one decomposed table must satisfy every
dependency.
o If a relation R is decomposed into relation R1 and R2, then the dependencies of R
either must be a part of R1 or R2 or must be derivable from the combination of
functional dependencies of R1 and R2.
o For example, suppose there is a relation R (A, B, C, D) with functional dependency
set (A->BC). The relational R is decomposed into R1(ABC) and R2(AD) which is
dependency preserving because FD A->BC is a part of relation R1(ABC).