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Question:
Published on: 25 April, 2024

What is functional dependency? What is the need for normalization? Explain 2nd and 3rd normal form with example. Consider the following relation:

EMP_PROJ { SSn, Pnumber, Hours, Ename, Pname, Plocation}

Assume { SSn, Pnumber} as primary key. The dependencies are

{SSn, Pnumber}→ Hours;     SSn →Ename;     Pnumber → {Pname, Plocation}.

Normalize the above relation into 2NF.

Answer:

 

Functional Dependency- Let Χ and Υ be the arbitrary subsets of a set of attributes of a relation schema R, then an instance r of R satisfies FD X →Y , if and only if for any two tuples t1 and t2 in r that have  , they must also have

That means, If R is a relation with attributes X and Y, a functional dependency between the attributes is represented as X → Y, which specifies Y is functionally dependent on X. Here X is a determinant set and Y is a dependent attribute. Each value of X is associated precisely with one Y value.

 

Objectives of Normalization

  • Develop a good description of the data, its relationships and constraints
  • Produce a stable set of relations that is a faithful model of the enterprise
  • Is highly flexible
  • Reduces redundancy-saves space and reduces inconsistency in data
  • Is free of update, insertion and deletion anomalies

 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.

Consider the Table1 in First Normal Form, while the candidate key is {Student, Subject}, Age of Student only depends on Student column, Student → Age, which is incorrect as per Second Normal Form. To achieve second normal form, it would be helpful to split out the subjects into an independent table, and match them up using the student names as foreign keys.

                                    Table1

 

Student

Age

Subject

Adam

15

Biology

Adam

15

Maths

Alex

14

Maths

Stuart

17

Maths

 

 

 

 

 

After splitting, there are two tables,

 

               Table2                                                                    Table3

 

Student

Subject

Adam

Biology

Adam

Maths

Alex

Maths

Stuart

Maths

Student

Age

Adam

15

Alex

14

Stuart

17

 

 

 

 

 

Third Normal Form (3NF)

Third Normal form applies that every non-prime attribute of table must be dependent on primary key, or we can say that, there should not be the case that a non-prime attribute is determined by another non-prime attribute. So this transitive functional dependency should be removed from the table and also the table must be in Second Normal form. For example, consider a table with following fields.

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. Hence to apply 3NF, we need to move the street, city and state to new table, with Zip as primary key.

New Student_Detail Table:

Student_id

Student_name

DOB

Zip

Address Table:

Zip

Street

city

state

 

EMP_PROJ

 

So, after removing the partial dependencies, there will be three tables,

Table1

Table2

Table3

 

 

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