Normalization

A large database defined as a single relation may result in data duplication. This repetition of
data may result in:

o Making relations very large.

o It isn't easy to maintain and update data as it would involve searching many records in
relation.
o Wastage and poor utilization of disk space and resources.
o The likelihood of errors and inconsistencies increases.

So to handle these problems, we should analyze and decompose the relations with redundant
data into smaller, simpler, and well-structured relations that are satisfy desirable properties.
Normalization is a process of decomposing the relations into relations with fewer attributes.

What is Normalization?
o Normalization is the process of organizing the data in the database.
o Normalization is used to minimize the redundancy from a relation or set of relations.
It is also used to eliminate undesirable characteristics like Insertion, Update, and
Deletion Anomalies.
o Normalization divides the larger table into smaller and links them using relationships.
o The normal form is used to reduce redundancy from the database table.

Why do we need Normalization?

The main reason for normalizing the relations is removing these anomalies. Failure to
eliminate anomalies leads to data redundancy and can cause data integrity and other problems
as the database grows. Normalization consists of a series of guidelines that helps to guide you
in creating a good database structure.uestions On Second Normal Form(2NF)

Data modification anomalies can be categorized into three types:

o Insertion Anomaly: Insertion Anomaly refers to when one cannot insert a new tuple
into a relationship due to lack of data.
o Deletion Anomaly: The delete anomaly refers to the situation where the deletion of
data results in the unintended loss of some other important data.
o Updatation Anomaly: The update anomaly is when an update of a single data value
requires multiple rows of data to be updated.
Types of Normal Forms:
Normalization works through a series of stages called Normal forms. The normal forms apply
to individual relations. The relation is said to be in particular normal form if it satisfies
constraints.

Normal Form Description

1NF A relation is in 1NF if it contains an atomic value.

2NF A relation will be in 2NF if it is in 1NF and all non-key attributes are fully functional
dependent on the primary key.

3NF A relation will be in 3NF if it is in 2NF and no transition dependency exists.

BCNF A stronger definition of 3NF is known as Boyce Codd's normal form.

4NF A relation will be in 4NF if it is in Boyce Codd's normal form and has no multi-valued
dependency.

5NF A relation is in 5NF. If it is in 4NF and does not contain any join dependency, joining
should be lossless.

Following are the various types of Normal forms:

Advantages of Normalization
o Normalization helps to minimize data redundancy.
 o Greater overall database organization.
o Data consistency within the database.
o Much more flexible database design.
o Enforces the concept of relational integrity.

Disadvantages of Normalization
o You cannot start building the database before knowing what the user needs.
o The performance degrades when normalizing the relations to higher normal forms,
i.e., 4NF, 5NF.
o It is very time-consuming and difficult to normalize relations of a higher degree.
o Careless decomposition may lead to a bad database design, leading to serious
problems.

First Normal Form (1NF)

o A relation will be 1NF if it contains an atomic value.
o It states that an attribute of a table cannot hold multiple values. It must hold only
single-valued attribute.
o First normal form disallows the multi-valued attribute, composite attribute, and their
combinations.

Example: Relation EMPLOYEE is not in 1NF because of multi-valued attribute

EMP_PHONE.

EMPLOYEE table:

EMP_ID EMP_NAME EMP_PHONE EMP_STATE

14 John 7272826385, UP
9064738238

20 Harry 8574783832 Bihar

12 Sam 7390372389, Punjab

8589830302

The decomposition of the EMPLOYEE table into 1NF has been shown below:

EMP_ID EMP_NAME EMP_PHONE EMP_STATE

14 John 7272826385 UP

14 John 9064738238 UP

20 Harry 8574783832 Bihar

12 Sam 7390372389 Punjab

12 Sam 8589830302 Punjab

Second Normal Form (2NF)

o In the 2NF, relational must be in 1NF.
o In the second normal form, all non-key attributes are fully functional dependent on the
primary key

Example: Let's assume, a school can store the data of teachers and the subjects they teach. In
a school, a teacher can teach more than one subject.

TEACHER table

TEACHER_ID SUBJECT TEACHER_AGE

25 Chemistry 30

25 Biology 30

47 English 35

83 Math 38

83 Computer 38

In the given table, non-prime attribute TEACHER_AGE is dependent on TEACHER_ID

which is a proper subset of a candidate key. That's why it violates the rule for 2NF.

To convert the given table into 2NF, we decompose it into two tables:

TEACHER_DETAIL table:

TEACHER_ID TEACHER_AGE

25 30
 47 35

83 38

TEACHER_SUBJECT table:

TEACHER_ID SUBJECT

25 Chemistry

25 Biology

47 English

83 Math

83 Computer

Transitive Dependency
Let's consider a relation R(A B C). Here A, B, and C are known as the attribute of the relation
R. When the following condition arises; then the transitive dependency occurs in the DBMS.
The conditions are A → B, B → C. Therefore, the condition becomes A → C. In other words,
we can say that when dependencies are made by two functional dependencies, then the
functional dependencies become transitive dependencies.

What is Transitive Dependency?

Consider a relation R(A B C). Here A, B, and C are known as the attribute of the relation R.
When the following condition arises; then the transitive dependency occurs in the DBMS.
The conditions are A → B, B → C. Therefore, the condition becomes A → C. in transitive
functional dependencies, a dependent is directly dependent on the determinant.

Let's understand the transitive dependencies with the help of the following example.

Author_ID Author Book Author_Nationality

 A1 Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things India

A1 Kiran Desai The Inheritance Of Loss India

A2 R. K. Narayan The Man Eater of Malgudy India

In the above author table, we get that.

o Book → Author: Here, the author attribute is determined by the book attribute. If
someone knows the book's name, they can also learn the author's name.
o Author → Author_Nationality: If someone knows the author's name, they can also
learn the author's nationality.
o Book → Author_Nationality : If someone knows the book's name, they can also
learn the author's nationality.

If we look closely at the functional dependencies discussed above, we find the following
pattern.

o A → B and B → C B→C; therefore, A → CA → C.

o A → Book, B → Author B → Author and C → Author_Nationality
C→Author_Nationality

Suppose we apply Third Normal Form (3NF) in the above author table. In that case, the
transitive dependency of the author table must be removed, and the process of removing the
transitive dependencies of the database is known as the Normalization process.

How to Avoid Transitive Dependencies?

Let's consider the above author table again and see what type of issue arises during the table
creation.

Authors table:
 Author_ID Author Book Author_Nationality

A1 Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things India

A1 Kiran Desai The Inheritance Of Loss India

A2 R. K. Narayan The Man Eater of Malgudy India

The data anomalies (like updation, insertion, and deletion anomalies) and inconsistency can
be contributed by the author table. When there is too much redundancy in the database, then
data anomalies are caused in the data. Data anomalies are also caused when there is a
problem with updating, deleting, and inserting new data. For example, in the author table-

o We cannot add a new author until we cannot add a book to the table.
o We cannot delete the author until we completely delete the book from the database.
o If we want to delete the book "The God of Small Things," the author's id, author, and
nationality also got deleted.

The above issues occur in any relationship that contains transitive dependencies.

Third Normal Form by Removing Transitive Dependency

Let's consider the Author table with three attributes (Author_ID, Author, Author_Nationality)
and try to find and eliminate the Transitive dependency from this table,

Authors Table:

Author_ID Author Book Author_Nationality

A1 Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things India

A1 Kiran Desai The Inheritance Of Loss India

A2 R. K. Narayan The Man Eater of Malgudy India

The above Author's table is not in 3NF because it has a Transitive dependency. Let's see how

o Author → Author_Nationality Author → Author_Nationality

o Author_ID → Author

Therefore the following functional dependency also exists,

 o Authir_ID → Author_Nationality is forming a pattern similar to what we discussed
above.

Now to eliminate the Transitive dependency, all we need to do is to split the Author's table in
such a manner that Author_ID will no longer functionally depend on Author_Nationality.

Let's create two tables, one containing only { Author_ID, Author} and another containing
{Author_Nationality}. The new tables will look like this,

Author Table
Author_ID Author

A1 The God of Small Things

A2 The Inheritance Of Loss

A3 The Man Eater of Malgudy

Author Nationality Table

Author Author_Nationality

Arundhati Roy India

Kiran Desai India

R. K. Narayan India

Now the new Author table and Author Nationality table contains no Transitive dependency
and the relation is now in 3NF.
Third Normal Form (3NF)
o A relation will be in 3NF if it is in 2NF and not contain any transitive partial
dependency.
o 3NF is used to reduce the data duplication. It is also used to achieve the data integrity.
o If there is no transitive dependency for non-prime attributes, then the relation must be
in third normal form.

A relation is in third normal form if it holds atleast one of the following conditions for every
non-trivial function dependency X → Y.

1. X is a super key.
2. Y is a prime attribute, i.e., each element of Y is part of some candidate key.

Example:

EMPLOYEE_DETAIL table:

EMP_ID EMP_NAME EMP_ZIP EMP_STATE EMP_CITY

222 Harry 201010 UP Noida

333 Stephan 02228 US Boston

444 Lan 60007 US Chicago

555 Katharine 06389 UK Norwich

666 John 462007 MP Bhopal

Super key in the table above:

1. {EMP_ID}, {EMP_ID, EMP_NAME}, {EMP_ID, EMP_NAME, EMP_ZIP}....so on

Candidate key: {EMP_ID}

Non-prime attributes: In the given table, all attributes except EMP_ID are non-
prime.

Here, EMP_STATE & EMP_CITY dependent on EMP_ZIP and EMP_ZIP dependent

on EMP_ID. The non-prime attributes (EMP_STATE, EMP_CITY) transitively
dependent on super key(EMP_ID). It violates the rule of third normal form.
 That's why we need to move the EMP_CITY and EMP_STATE to the new
<EMPLOYEE_ZIP> table, with EMP_ZIP as a Primary key.

EMPLOYEE table:

EMP_ID EMP_NAME EMP_ZIP

222 Harry 201010

333 Stephan 02228

444 Lan 60007

555 Katharine 06389

666 John 462007

EMPLOYEE_ZIP table:

EMP_ZIP EMP_STATE EMP_CITY

201010 UP Noida

02228 US Boston

60007 US Chicago

06389 UK Norwich

462007 MP Bhopal

Functional Dependency
The functional dependency is a relationship that exists between two attributes. It typically
exists between the primary key and non-key attribute within a table.

X → Y

The left side of FD is known as a determinant, the right side of the production is known as a
dependent.

For example:

Assume we have an employee table with attributes: Emp_Id, Emp_Name, Emp_Address.

 Here Emp_Id attribute can uniquely identify the Emp_Name attribute of employee table
because if we know the Emp_Id, we can tell that employee name associated with it.

Functional dependency can be written as:

Emp_Id → Emp_Name

We can say that Emp_Name is functionally dependent on Emp_Id.

Types of Functional dependency

1. Trivial functional dependency

o A → B has trivial functional dependency if B is a subset of A.
o The following dependencies are also trivial like: A → A, B → B

Example:

1. Consider a table with two columns Employee_Id and Employee_Name.

2. {Employee_id, Employee_Name} → Employee_Id is a trivial functional dependency as
3. Employee_Id is a subset of {Employee_Id, Employee_Name}.
4. Also, Employee_Id → Employee_Id and Employee_Name → Employee_Name are trivial
dependencies too.

2. Non-trivial functional dependency

o A → B has a non-trivial functional dependency if B is not a subset of A.
o When A intersection B is NULL, then A → B is called as complete non-trivial.
 Example:

1. ID → Name,
2. Name → DOB

Boyce Codd normal form (BCNF)

o BCNF is the advance version of 3NF. It is stricter than 3NF.
o A table is in BCNF if every functional dependency X → Y, X is the super key of the
table.
o For BCNF, the table should be in 3NF, and for every FD, LHS is super key.

Example: Let's assume there is a company where employees work in more than one
department.

EMPLOYEE table:

EMP_ID EMP_COUNTRY EMP_DEPT DEPT_TYPE EMP_DEPT_NO

264 India Designing D394 283

264 India Testing D394 300

364 UK Stores D283 232

364 UK Developing D283 549

In the above table Functional dependencies are as follows:

1. EMP_ID → EMP_COUNTRY
2. EMP_DEPT → {DEPT_TYPE, EMP_DEPT_NO}

Candidate key: {EMP-ID, EMP-DEPT}een

The table is not in BCNF because neither EMP_DEPT nor EMP_ID alone are keys.

To convert the given table into BCNF, we decompose it into three tables:

EMP_COUNTRY table:
 EMP_ID EMP_COUNTRY

264 India

264 India

EMP_DEPT table:

EMP_DEPT DEPT_TYPE EMP_DEPT_NO

Designing D394 283

Testing D394 300

Stores D283 232

Developing D283 549

EMP_DEPT_MAPPING table:

EMP_ID EMP_DEPT

D394 283

D394 300

D283 232

D283 549

Functional dependencies:

1. EMP_ID → EMP_COUNTRY
2. EMP_DEPT → {DEPT_TYPE, EMP_DEPT_NO}

Candidate keys:

For the first table: EMP_ID

For the second table: EMP_DEPT
For the third table: {EMP_ID, EMP_DEPT}

Now, this is in BCNF because left side part of both the functional dependencies is a key.

Multivalued Dependency
 o Multivalued dependency occurs when two attributes in a table are independent of each
other but, both depend on a third attribute.
o A multivalued dependency consists of at least two attributes that are dependent on a
third attribute that's why it always requires at least three attributes.

Example: Suppose there is a bike manufacturer company which produces two colors(white
and black) of each model every year.

BIKE_MODEL MANUF_YEAR COLOR

M2011 2008 White

M2001 2008 Black

M3001 2013 White

M3001 2013 Black

M4006 2017 White

M4006 2017 Black

Here columns COLOR and MANUF_YEAR are dependent on BIKE_MODEL and

independent of each other.

In this case, these two columns can be called as multivalued dependent on BIKE_MODEL.
The representation of these dependencies is shown below:

1. BIKE_MODEL → → MANUF_YEAR
2. BIKE_MODEL → → COLOR

This can be read as "BIKE_MODEL multidetermined MANUF_YEAR" and

"BIKE_MODEL multidetermined COLOR"

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

STUDENT_HOBBY

STU_ID HOBBY

21 Dancing

21 Singing

34 Dancing

74 Cricket

59 Hockey

Join Dependency
o Join decomposition is a further generalization of Multivalued dependencies.
o If the join of R1 and R2 over C is equal to relation R, then we can say that a join
dependency (JD) exists.
o Where R1 and R2 are the decompositions R1(A, B, C) and R2(C, D) of a given
relations R (A, B, C, D).
o Alternatively, R1 and R2 are a lossless decomposition of R.
o A JD ⋈ {R1, R2,..., Rn} is said to hold over a relation R if R1, R2,....., Rn is a
lossless-join decomposition.
o The *(A, B, C, D), (C, D) will be a JD of R if the join of join's attribute is equal to the
relation R.
o Here, *(R1, R2, R3) is used to indicate that relation R1, R2, R3 and so on are a JD of
R.

Fifth normal form (5NF)

o A relation is in 5NF if it is in 4NF and not contains any join dependency and joining
should be lossless.
o 5NF is satisfied when all the tables are broken into as many tables as possible in order
to avoid redundancy.
 o 5NF is also known as Project-join normal form (PJ/NF).

Example
SUBJECT LECTURER SEMESTER

Computer Anshika Semester 1

Computer John Semester 1

Math John Semester 1

Math Akash Semester 2

Chemistry Praveen Semester 1

In the above table, John takes both Computer and Math class for Semester 1 but he doesn't
take Math class for Semester 2. In this case, combination of all these fields required to
identify a valid data.

Suppose we add a new Semester as Semester 3 but do not know about the subject and who
will be taking that subject so we leave Lecturer and Subject as NULL. But all three columns
together acts as a primary key, so we can't leave other two columns blank.

So to make the above table into 5NF, we can decompose it into three relations P1, P2 & P3:

P1

SEMESTER SUBJECT

Semester 1 Computer

Semester 1 Math

Semester 1 Chemistry

Semester 2 Math

P2
 SUBJECT LECTURER

Computer Anshika

Computer John

Math John

Math Akash

Chemistry Praveen

P3

SEMSTER LECTURER

Semester 1 Anshika

Semester 1 John

Semester 1 John

Semester 2 Akash

Semester 1 Praveen