Database normalization

Database normalization (or normalisation) is the process of organizing the columns (attributes) and tables (relations) of a relational database to minimize data redundancy.

Normalization involves decomposing a table into less redundant (and smaller) tables without losing information; defining foreign keys in the old table referencing the primary keys of the new ones. The objective is to isolate data so that additions, deletions, and modifications of an attribute can be made in just one table and then propagated through the rest of the database using the defined foreign keys.

Edgar F. Codd, the inventor of the relational model (RM), introduced the concept of normalization and what we now know as the First normal form (1NF) in 1970. Codd went on to define the Second normal form (2NF) and Third normal form (3NF) in 1971, and Codd and Raymond F. Boyce defined the Boyce-Codd Normal Form (BCNF) in 1974. Informally, a relational database table is often described as "normalized" if it meets Third Normal Form. Most 3NF tables are free of insertion, update, and deletion anomalies.