Normalization of Database

Table
Normalization is a systematic approach of
decomposing tables by eliminate data redundancy
and undesirable characteristics such as Insertion,
Update and Deletion.
Two main purpose:
Eliminating redundant (useless) data
Ensuring data dependencies make sense.
Normalization of Database
Without normalization, it becomes difficult to handle
and update the database.
Insertion, Updating and Deletion are very frequent if
database is not normalized.
Problem with Normalization
S_id S_Name S_Address Subject_offered
401

Adam Kuala Lumpur Bio
402

Alex Ipoh Maths
403

Stuart Penang Maths
404

Adam Melacca Physics
Student Table
A row of data cannot contain repeating group.
Each row of data must have a unique identifier.
Student_Subject Table

1NF
S_id S_Name Subject_offered
401 Adam Biology
401 Adam Physics
403 Alex Maths
404 Stuart Maths
You can clearly see that student name Adam is used twice in
the table and subject maths is also repeated.
To reduce above table to First Normal form break the table
into two different tables.
New Student Table:
S_id S_Name
401 Adam
403 Alex
404 Stuart
Subject Table :




In Student table concatenation of subject_id and
student_id is the Primary key.
Now both table are normalized.
Subject_id Student_id Subject_offered
10 401 Biology
11 401 Physics
12 402 Maths
12 403 Maths
A table to be normalized to Second Normal Form
should meet all the needs of First Normal Form and
there must not be any partial dependency.
If any column depends only on one part of the
concatenated key, then the table fail Second normal
form.

2NF
Customer table:




Customer_id and Order_Id is the primary key.
However this table are not in the Second Normal Form
because there are partial dependencies of columns on
primary key.

Customer_id Customer_Name Order_Id Order_Nam
e
Sale_Detail
401 Adam 10 Order1 Sale1
401 Adam 11 Order2 Sale2
402 Alex 12 Order3 Sale3
403 Stuart 13 order4 sale4
To reduce Customer table to Second Normal Form
break the table into following three different table:
Customer Detail Table
Customer_id Customer_Name
101 Adam
102 Alex
102 Stuart
Order Detail Table:




Sale_Detail:
Customer_id Order_id Sale_Detail
101 10 Sale1
101 11 Sale2
102 12 Sale3
103 13 sale4
Order_id Order_name
10 Order1
11 Order2
12 Order3
13 Order4
Third Normal Form applies that every non-prime
attribute of table must be dependent on Primary Key.
The transitive Functional Dependency should be
removed from the table.
Table must be in second form.
3NF
Student_Detail Table:


In this table Student_id is Primary Key.
But street, city and state depends upon zip.
The dependency between zip and other fields is called
transitive dependency.
To apply 3NF we need to move the street, city and state to
new table
Student_Id

Student_Nam
e

DOB Stree
t
City State Zip
Student_Detail Table:


Student_Detail Table:


The advantages of removing transitive dependency:
Amount of data duplication is reduced
Data integrity achieved.

Student_id

Student_Name DOB Zip
Zip

Street City State

Example 1
CUSTOMER (CustomerNo, CustomerName, Address,
ItemCode, ItemDescription, Quantity, Price, Supplier,
SupplierName)
Example 2
OrderNo OrderDate ProductNo Descrption Quantity
123 3/8/95 A3
A4
A2
Pen Merah
Pen Hijau
Pen Kuning
7
1
4
234 5/7/95 A1
A3
A1
A3
12
3
345 12/7/95 A3 Pen Merah 144
Example 3