SS2 First Term Data Processing Lesson Note – Normal Forms

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WEEK FOUR                                                            

TOPIC:  NORMAL FORMS

CONTENT: 

1. Examples of tables in first normal forms
2. Tables in second and third normal forms

Sub-topic 1

Database Normalization is a technique of organizing the data in the database. Normalization is a systematic approach of decomposing tables to eliminate data redundancy and undesirable characteristics like Insertion, Update and Deletion Anamolies. It is a multi-step process that puts data into tabular form by 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.

Problem Without Normalization

Without Normalization, it becomes difficult to handle and update the database, without facing data loss. Insertion, Updation and Deletion Anamolies are very frequent if Database is not Normalized. To understand these anomalies let us take an example of Student table.

• Updation Anamoly : To update address of a student who occurs twice or more than twice in a table, we will have to update S_Address column in all the rows, else data will become inconsistent.
• Insertion Anamoly : Suppose for a new admission, we have a Student id(S_id), name and address of a student but if student has not opted for any subjects yet then we have to insert NULL there, leading to Insertion Anamoly.
• Deletion Anamoly : If (S_id) 401 has only one subject and temporarily he drops it, when we delete that row, entire student record will be deleted along with it.

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