UNIT-6

Schema Refinement (Normalization): Purpose of Normalization or schema

refinement, concept of functional dependency, normal forms based on functional
dependency (1NF, 2NF and 3 NF), concept of surrogate key, Boyce-codd normal form
(BCNF), Lossless join and dependency preserving decomposition, Fourth normal form
(4NF).

What is Normalization?

Normalization is a method of organizing the data in the database which helps you to avoid data
redundancy, insertion, update & deletion anomaly. It is a process of analyzing the relation
schemas based on their different functional dependencies and primary key.

o Normalization is used to minimize the redundancy from a relation or set of relations. It is

also used to eliminate the undesirable characteristics like Insertion, Update and Deletion
Anomalies.
o Normalization divides the larger table into the smaller table and links them using
relationship.
o The normal form is used to reduce redundancy from the database table.

Normalization is used for mainly two purpose,

 Eliminating reduntant(useless) data.

 Ensuring data dependencies make sense i.e data is logically stored

Normalization is inherent to relational database theory. It may have the effect of duplicating the
same data within the database which may result in the creation of additional tables.

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 Anomaly : 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 Anomaly : 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 NULLthere, leading to Insertion Anomaly.
 Deletion Anomaly : 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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Functional Dependency
What is a functional dependency?
Functional Dependency is when one attribute determines another attribute in a DBMS system.
Functional Dependency plays a vital role to find the difference between good and bad database
design.
Example:

Employee number Employee Name Salary City

1 Dana 50000 San Francisco

2 Francis 38000 London

3 Andrew 25000 Tokyo

In this example, if we know the value of Employee number, we can obtain Employee Name, city,
salary, etc.
By this, we can say that the city, Employee Name, and salary are functionally depended on
Employee number.

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.
A functional dependency is denoted by an arrow →
The functional dependency of X on Y is represented by X →Y

The left side of FD is known as a determinant, the right side of the production is known
as a dependent.
Advantages of Functional Dependency
 Functional Dependency avoids data redundancy. Therefore same data do not repeat at
multiple locations in that database
 It helps you to maintain the quality of data in the database
 It helps you to defined meanings and constraints of databases
 It helps you to identify bad designs
 It helps you to find the facts regarding the database design

Rules of Functional Dependencies

Below given are the Three most important rules for Functional Dependency:

 Reflexive rule –. If X is a set of attributes and Y is_subset_of X, then X holds a

value of Y.
 Augmentation rule: When x -> y holds, and c is attribute set, then ac -> bc
also holds. That is adding attributes which do not change the basic
dependencies.

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  Transitivity rule: This rule is very much similar to the transitive rule in algebra
if x -> y holds and y -> z holds, then x -> z also holds. X -> y is called as
functionally that determines y.

Types of Functional Dependencies

 Multivalued dependency
 Trivial functional dependency
 Non-trivial functional dependency
 Transitive dependency

Multivalued dependency in DBMS

Multivalued dependency occurs in the situation where there are multiple independent
multivalued attributes in a single table. A multivalued dependency is a complete
constraint between two sets of attributes in a relation. It requires that certain tuples be
present in a relation.

Example:

Car_model Maf_year Color

H001 2017 Metallic

H001 2017 Green

H005 2018 Metallic

H005 2018 Blue

H010 2015 Metallic

H033 2012 Gray

In this example, maf_year and color are independent of each other but dependent on
car_model. In this example, these two columns are said to be multivalue dependent on
car_model.

This dependence can be represented like this:

car_model -> maf_year

car_model-> colour

Trivial Functional dependency:

The Trivial dependency is a set of attributes which are called a trivial if the set of
attributes are included in that attribute.

So, X -> Y is a trivial functional dependency if Y is a subset of X.

The following dependencies are also trivial: A->A & B->B

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For example:

Emp_id Emp_name

AS555 Harry

AS811 George

AS999 Kevin

Consider this table with two columns Emp_id and Emp_name.

{Emp_id, Emp_name} -> Emp_id is a trivial functional dependency as Emp_id

is a subset of {Emp_id,Emp_name}.

Non trivial functional dependency in DBMS

Functional dependency which also known as a nontrivial dependency occurs when A->B
holds true where B is not a subset of A. In a relationship, if attribute B is not a subset
of attribute A, then it is considered as a non-trivial dependency.

Company CEO Age

Microsoft Satya Nadella 51

Google Sundar Pichai 46

Apple Tim Cook 57

Example:

(Company} -> {CEO} (if we know the Company, we knows the CEO name)
But CEO is not a subset of Company, and hence it's non-trivial functional dependency.
Transitive dependency:
A transitive is a type of functional dependency which happens when t is indirectly
formed by two functional dependencies.
X -> Z is a transitive dependency if the following three functional dependencies hold
true:
 X->Y
 Y does not ->X
 Y->Z

Example:

Company CEO Age

Microsoft Satya Nadella 51

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Google Sundar Pichai 46

Alibaba Jack Ma 54

{Company} -> {CEO} (if we know the compay, we know its CEO's name)

{CEO } -> {Age} If we know the CEO, we know the Age

Therefore according to the rule of rule of transitive dependency:

{ Company} -> {Age} should hold, that makes sense because if we know the
company name, we can know his age.

Note: You need to remember that transitive dependency can only occur in a relation of
three or more attributes.

Types of Normal Forms

There are the four types of normal forms:

Normal Description
Form

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.

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

5NF A relation is in 5NF if it is in 4NF and not contains any join dependency
and joining should be lossless.
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First Normal Form (1NF)
o A relation will be 1NF if it contains an unique 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.

 As per First Normal Form, no two Rows of data must contain repeating group of
information i.e each set of column must have a unique value, such that multiple
columns cannot be used to fetch the same row. Each table should be organized
into rows, and each row should have a primary key that distinguishes it as
unique.
 The Primary key is usually a single column, but sometimes more than one
column can be combined to create a single primary key. For example consider a
table which is not in First normal form

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

In First Normal Form, any row must not have a column in which more than one value is
saved, like separated with commas. Rather than that, we must separate such data into
multiple rows.

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

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 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

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TEACHER_SUBJECT table:

TEACHER_ID SUBJECT

25 Chemistry

25 Biology

47 English

83 Math

83 Computer

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.

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.
X is a super key.
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

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 444 Lan 60007 US Chicago

555 Katharine 06389 UK Norwich

666 John 462007 MP Bhopal

Super key in the table above:

{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

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 60007 US Chicago

06389 UK Norwich

462007 MP Bhopal

The advantage of removing transtive dependency is,

 Amount of data duplication is reduced.

 Data integrity achieved.

surrogate key:

A surrogate key represents an entity that exists in the outside world and modeled
within the database and made visible to the application and the user, or it can
represent an object within the database itself and be invisible to the user and
application. In both cases, the surrogate key is internally generated.

A surrogate key is not always used as a primary key, and this depends on whether the
database is of the current or temporal kind. A current database only stores valid current
data and requires a one-to-one association between the surrogate key in the modeled
world and the primary key of the database, in which case the surrogate may act as the
primary key. However, in a temporal database, there is a many-to-one association
between the primary keys and the surrogate key, which means that there may be
multiple objects within the database that are associated with the surrogate key, so it
cannot be used as a primary key.

A surrogate key has the following characteristics:

 The value is never reused and is unique within the whole system.
 It is system generated.
 The value cannot be manipulated by the user or application.
 The value is not an amalgam of different values from multiple domains

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.

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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:

EMP_ID → EMP_COUNTRY
EMP_DEPT → {DEPT_TYPE, EMP_DEPT_NO}

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

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

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EMP_DEPT_MAPPING table:

EMP_ID EMP_DEPT

D394 283

D394 300

D283 232

D283 549

Functional dependencies:

EMP_ID → EMP_COUNTRY
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.

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

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 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

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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

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

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

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 R2(AD) which is dependency preserving because FD A->BC is a part of relation
R1(ABC).

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.

Inclusion Dependency
o Multivalued dependency and join dependency can be used to guide database
design although they both are less common than functional dependencies.
o Inclusion dependencies are quite common. They typically show little influence on
designing of the database.
o The inclusion dependency is a statement in which some columns of a relation are
contained in other columns.
o The example of inclusion dependency is a foreign key. In one relation, the
referring relation is contained in the primary key column(s) of the referenced
relation.
o Suppose we have two relations R and S which was obtained by translating two
entity sets such that every R entity is also an S entity.
o Inclusion dependency would be happen if projecting R on its key attributes yields
a relation that is contained in the relation obtained by projecting S on its key
attributes.
o In inclusion dependency, we should not split groups of attributes that participate
in an inclusion dependency.
o In practice, most inclusion dependencies are key-based that is involved only
keys.

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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

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STUDENT_HOBBY

STU_ID HOBBY

21 Dancing

21 Singing

34 Dancing

74 Cricket

59 Hockey

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.

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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

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Difference Betwwen 3NF and BCNF:

3 NF BCNF
1.The database is said to be in 2 NF if AND 1.Database is said to be in BCNF if AND ONLY if
ONLY if it must be 1NF and there is no partial it already is in 2NF and every determinant is
dependency candidate key.
2.It concentrates on the primary key 2.It concentrates on all candidate keys

3.Redundancy is high compared to BCNF 3.Redundancy is low compared to 3 NF

4.It may preserve all dependencies 4.It may not preserve all dependencies

5.If there is a dependency X->Y is allowed in 3 5.If there is a dependency X->Y.It is allowed in
NF if X is a super key or Y is a prime key. BCNF if X is a super key.
6.It easy to achieve 6.It is difficult to achieve

7.Maintaining functional dependency is easy 7.Maintaining functional dependency is difficult.

 Main difference of 3NF and BCNF is that for a functional dependency A->B, 3 NF allows
this dependency in a relation if B is a primary-key attribute and A is not a cndidate key.
 Whereas, BCNF insists that for this dependency to remain in a relation, A must be a
candidate key.
 Every relation in BCNF is also in 3NF. However, relation in 3NF may not be in BCNF.

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