Anil K.

Pawar
Assistant Professor (Senior Scale)
Department of CSE, School of Computer Science and Engineering
Manipal University Jaipur.
Database in Good Form? Normalization
Outlines
Features of Good Relational Design
Atomic Domains and First Normal Form
Functional Dependencies
Decomposition Using Functional Dependencies
Functional Dependency Theory
Algorithms for Decomposition using Functional Dependencies
Normal Forms
Features of Good Relational Designs
• Suppose we combine instructor and department into in_dep, which represents the natural join of
the relations instructor and department

• There is repetition of information

• Need to use null values (if we add a new department with no instructors)
A Combined Schema Without Repetition
• Not all combined schemas result in the repetition of information
• Consider combining relations
• sec_class(sec_id, building, room_number) and
• section(course_id, sec_id, semester, year)
into one relation
• section(course_id, sec_id, semester, year,
building, room_number)
• No repetition in this case
A Combined Schema Without Repetition
• Consider combining loan_branch
and loan
loan_amt_br = (loan_number,
amount, branch_name)
• No repetition (as suggested by
example below)
Decomposition
• The only way to avoid the repetition-of-information problem in the in_dep schema is to
decompose it into two schemas – instructor and department schemas.
• Not all decompositions are good. Suppose we decompose

employee(ID, name, street, city, salary)

into
employee1 (ID, name)
employee2 (name, street, city, salary)

The problem arises when we have two employees with the same name
• The next slide shows how we lose information- we cannot reconstruct the original
employee relation- and this is a lossy decomposition.
A Lossy
Decomposition
Lossless Decomposition
• Let R be a relation schema and let R1 and R2 form a decomposition of
R . That is R = R1 U R2
• We say that the decomposition is a lossless decomposition if there is
no loss of information by replacing R with the two relation schemas
R1 U R2
• Formally,
 R1 (r)  R2 (r) = r
• And, conversely a decomposition is lossy if
r   R1 (r)  R2 (r) = r
Example of Lossless Decomposition
• Decomposition of R = (A, B, C)
R1 = (A, B) R2 = (B, C)
Lossless Decomposition
• We can use functional dependencies to show when certain decomposition are
lossless.
• For the case of R = (R1, R2), we require that for all possible relations r on schema R
r = R1 (r ) R2 (r )
• A decomposition of R into R1 and R2 is lossless decomposition if at least one of
the following dependencies is in F+:
• R1  R2  R1
• R1  R2  R2
• The above functional dependencies are a sufficient condition for lossless join
decomposition; the dependencies are a necessary condition only if all constraints
are functional dependencies
Example
• R = (A, B, C)
F = {A  B, B  C)
• R1 = (A, B), R2 = (B, C)
• Lossless decomposition:
R1  R2 = {B} and B  BC
• R1 = (A, B), R2 = (A, C)
• Lossless decomposition:
R1  R2 = {A} and A  AB
• Note:
• B  BC
is a shorthand notation for
• B  {B, C}
First Normal Form
• Domain is atomic if its elements are considered to be indivisible units
• Examples of non-atomic domains:
• Set of names, composite attributes
• Identification numbers like CS101 that can be broken up into parts
• A relational schema R is in first normal form if the domains of all
attributes of R are atomic
• Non-atomic values complicate storage and encourage redundant
(repeated) storage of data
• Example: Set of accounts stored with each customer and set of owners stored
with each account
• We assume all relations are in first normal form.
First Normal Form (Cont’d)
• Atomicity is actually a property of how the elements of the domain
are used.
• Example: Strings would normally be considered indivisible
• Suppose that students are given roll numbers which are strings of the
form CS0012 or EE1127
• If the first two characters are extracted to find the department, the
domain of roll numbers is not atomic.
• Doing so is a bad idea: leads to encoding of information in application
program rather than in the database.
• Also does not allow repeated fields, e.g., vehicle1, vehicle2, vehicle3.
Second Normal Form
All non-key fields must be a function of the full key
• – Example that violates second normal form:
• Key is Part + Warehouse
• Someone found it convenient to add Address, to make a report easier
• WarehouseAddress is a fact about Warehouse, not about Part
Second Normal Form
• Problems:
• Warehouse address is repeated in every row that refers to a part stored in a
warehouse
• If warehouse address changes, every row referring to a part stored in that
warehouse must be updated
• Data might become inconsistent, with different records showing different
addresses for the same warehouse
• If at some time there were no parts stored in the warehouse, there may be no
record in which to keep the warehouse’s address.
Second Normal Form
• Solution:
• Two entity types: Inventory, and Warehouse
• Advantage: solves problems from last slide
• Disadvantage: If application needs address of each
• warehouse stocking a part, it must access two tables instead of one.
This used to be a problem but rarely is now.
Normalization Theory
• Decide whether a particular relation R is in “good” form.
• In the case that a relation R is not in “ good ” form,
decompose it into set of relations {R1, R2, ..., Rn} such that
• Each relation is in good form
• The decomposition is a lossless decomposition
• Our theory is based on:
• Functional dependencies
• Multivalued dependencies
Functional Dependencies
• There are usually a variety of constraints (rules) on the data in the
real world.
• For example, some of the constraints that are expected to hold in a
university database are:
• Students and instructors are uniquely identified by their ID.
• Each student and instructor has only one name.
• Each instructor and student is (primarily) associated with only one
department.
• Each department has only one value for its budget, and only one
associated building.
Functional Dependencies (Cont.)
• An instance of a relation that satisfies all such real-world
constraints is called a legal instance of the relation;
• A legal instance of a database is one where all the relation
instances are legal.
• Constraints on the set of legal relations.
• Require that a certain attribute's value uniquely determines
the value for another set of attributes.
• A functional dependency is a generalization of the notion of
a key.
Functional Dependencies Definition
• Let R be a relation schema
  R and   R
• The functional dependency

holds on R if and only if for any legal relations r(R), whenever any two tuples t1 and t2 of r
agree on the attributes , they also agree on the attributes . That is,

t1[] = t2 []  t1[ ] = t2 [ ]

1 4
• Example: Consider r(A,B ) with the following instance of r.
1 5
3 7
• On this instance, B  A hold; A  B does NOT hold,
Trivial Functional Dependencies
• A functional dependency is trivial if it is satisfied by all
instances of a relation
• Example:
• ID, name  ID
• name  name
• In general,    is trivial if   
Keys and Functional Dependencies
• K is a superkey for relation schema R if and only if K  R
• K is a candidate key for R if and only if
• K  R, and
• for no   K,   R
• Functional dependencies allow us to express constraints that cannot be expressed using
superkeys. Consider the schema:
in_dep (ID, name, salary, dept_name, building, budget ).
We expect these functional dependencies to hold:
dept_name building
ID  building
but would not expect the following to hold:
dept_name  salary
Use of Functional Dependencies
• We use functional dependencies to:
• To test relations to see if they are legal under a given set of functional
dependencies.
• If a relation r is legal under a set F of functional dependencies, we say
that r satisfies F.
• To specify constraints on the set of legal relations
• We say that F holds on R if all legal relations on R satisfy the set of
functional dependencies F.
• Note: A specific instance of a relation schema may satisfy a functional
dependency even if the functional dependency does not hold on all legal
instances.
• For example, a specific instance of instructor may, by chance, satisfy
name  ID.
Closure of a Set of Functional Dependencies
• Given a set F, a set of functional dependencies, there are
certain other functional dependencies that are logically
implied by F.
• If A  B and B  C, then we can infer that A  C
• The set of all functional dependencies logically implied by F
is the closure of F.
• We denote the closure of F by F+.
Closure of a Set of Functional Dependencies
• Given a set F set of functional dependencies, there are certain other
functional dependencies that are logically implied by F.
• If A  B and B  C, then we can infer that A  C
• etc.
• The set of all functional dependencies logically implied by F is the
closure of F.
• We denote the closure of F by F+.
Closure of a Set of Functional Dependencies
• We can compute F+, the closure of F, by repeatedly applying
Armstrong’s Axioms:
• Reflexive rule: if   , then   
• Augmentation rule: if   , then     
• Transitivity rule: if   , and   , then   
• These rules are
• Sound -- generate only functional dependencies that actually hold, and
• Complete -- generate all functional dependencies that hold.
Example of F+
• R = (A, B, C, G, H, I) • Some members of F+
F={AB • AH
AC • by transitivity from A  B and B  H
CG  H • AG  I
CG  I • by augmenting A  C with G, to get AG  CG
and then transitivity with CG  I
B  H}
• CG  HI
• by augmenting CG  I to infer CG  CGI,
and augmenting of CG  H to infer CGI  HI,
and then transitivity
Closure of Functional Dependencies (Cont.)
• Additional rules:
• Union rule: If    holds and    holds, then    
holds.
• Decomposition rule: If     holds, then    holds
and    holds.
• Pseudotransitivity rule:If    holds and     holds,
then     holds.
• The above rules can be inferred from Armstrong’s
axioms.
Procedure for Computing F+
• To compute the closure of a set of functional dependencies F:
F+=F
repeat
for each functional dependency f in F+
apply reflexivity and augmentation rules on f
add the resulting functional dependencies to F +
for each pair of functional dependencies f1and f2 in F +
if f1 and f2 can be combined using transitivity
then add the resulting functional dependency to F +
until F + does not change any further

• NOTE: We shall see an alternative procedure for this task later

Closure of Attribute Sets
• Given a set of attributes , define the closure of  under F (denoted
by +) as the set of attributes that are functionally determined by 
under F
• Algorithm to compute +, the closure of  under F
result := ;
while (changes to result) do
for each    in F do
begin
if   result then result := result  
end
Example of Attribute Set Closure
• R = (A, B, C, G, H, I) • (AG)+
1. result = AG
• F = {A  B
AC 2. result = ABCG (A  C and A  B)
CG  H 3. result = ABCGH (CG  H and CG  AGBC)
CG  I 4. result = ABCGHI (CG  I and CG  AGBCH)
B  H} • Is AG a candidate key?
1. Is AG a super key?
1. Does AG  R? == Is R  (AG)+
2. Is any subset of AG a superkey?
1. Does A  R? == Is R  (A)+
2. Does G  R? == Is R  (G)+
3. In general: check for each subset of size n-1
Uses of Attribute Closure
There are several uses of the attribute closure algorithm:
 Testing for superkey:
• To test if  is a superkey, we compute +, and check if + contains all attributes of R.
 Testing functional dependencies
• To check if a functional dependency    holds (or, in other words, is in F+), just
check if   +.
• That is, we compute + by using attribute closure and then check if it contains .
• Is a simple and cheap test, and very useful
 Computing closure of F
• For each   R, we find the closure +, and for each S  +, we output a functional
dependency   S.
Canonical Cover
• Suppose we have a set of functional dependencies F on a relation
schema. Whenever a user updates the relation, the database system
must ensure that the update does not violate any functional
dependencies;
• All the functional dependencies in F are satisfied in the new database
state.
• If an update violates functional dependencies in the set F, the system
must roll back the update.
Canonical Cover
• We can reduce the effort spent checking for violations by testing a
simplified set of functional dependencies with the same closure as
the given set.
• This simplified set is termed the canonical cover
• To define canonical cover, we must first define extraneous attributes.
• An attribute of a functional dependency in F is extraneous if we can
remove it without changing F + .
Extraneous Attributes
• Removing an attribute from the left side of a functional dependency
could make it a stronger constraint.
• For example, if we have AB  C and remove B, we get the possibly stronger
result A  C. It may be stronger because A  C logically implies AB  C,
but AB  C does not, on its own, logically imply A  C
• But, depending on what our set F of functional dependencies
happens to be, we may be able to safely remove B from AB --> C.
• For example, suppose that
• F = {AB  C, A  D, D  C}
• Then we can show that F logically implies A  C, making extraneous in AB 
C.
Extraneous Attributes (Cont.)
• Removing an attribute from the right side of a functional dependency
could make it a weaker constraint.
• For example, if we have AB  CD and remove C, we get the possibly weaker
result AB  D. It may be weaker because using just AB  D, we can no
longer infer AB  C.
• But, depending on what our set F of functional dependencies
happens to be, we may be able to remove C from AB  CD safely.
• For example, suppose that
F = { AB  CD, A  C}.
• Then we can show that even after replacing AB  CD by AB  D, we can still
infer $AB  C and thus AB  CD.
Testing if an Attribute is Extraneous
• Let R be a relation schema and let F be a set of functional
dependencies that hold on R . Consider an attribute in the functional
dependency   .
• To test if attribute A   is extraneous in 
• Consider the set:
F' = (F – {  })  { ( – A)},
• check that + contains A; if it does, A is extraneous in 
• To test if attribute A   is extraneous in 
• Let  =  – {A}. Check if    can be inferred from F.
• Compute + using the dependencies in F
• If + includes all attributes in  then, A is extraneous in 
Examples of Extraneous Attributes
• Let F = {AB  CD, A  E, E  C }
• To check if C is extraneous in AB  CD, we:
• Compute the attribute closure of AB under F' = {AB
 D, A  E, E  C}
• The closure is ABCDE, which includes CD
• This implies that C is extraneous
Canonical Cover
• F logically implies all dependencies in Fc , and
• Fc logically implies all dependencies in F, and
• No functional dependency in Fc contains an extraneous
attribute, and
• Each left side of functional dependency in Fc is unique. That
is, there are no two dependencies in Fc
• 1  1 and 2  2 such that
• 1 = 2
Canonical Cover
• To compute a canonical cover for F:
repeat
Use the union rule to replace any dependencies in F of the form
1  1 and 1  2 with 1  1 2
Find a functional dependency    in Fc with an extraneous
attribute either in  or in 
/* Note: test for extraneous attributes done using Fc, not F*/
If an extraneous attribute is found, delete it from   
until (Fc not change

• Note: Union rule may become applicable after some extraneous attributes have been
deleted, so it has to be re-applied
Example: Computing a Canonical Cover
• R = (A, B, C)
F = {A  BC
BC
AB
AB  C}
• Combine A  BC and A  B into A  BC
• Set is now {A  BC, B  C, AB  C}
• A is extraneous in AB  C
• Check if the result of deleting A from AB  C is implied by the other
dependencies
• Yes: in fact, B  C is already present!
• Set is now {A  BC, B  C}
Example: Computing a Canonical Cover
• C is extraneous in A  BC
• Check if A  C is logically implied by A  B and the other
dependencies
• Yes: using transitivity on A  B and B  C.
• Can use attribute closure of A in more complex cases
• The canonical cover is: AB
BC
Dependency Preservation
• Testing functional dependency constraints each time the database is
updated can be costly
• It is useful to design the database to test constraints efficiently.
• If testing a functional dependency can be done by considering just
one relation, then the cost of testing this constraint is low
• When decomposing a relation, it is possible to do the testing without
having to perform a Cartesian Produced.
• A decomposition that makes it computationally hard to enforce
functional dependency is said to be NOT dependency preserving.
Dependency Preservation
• Let Fi be the set of dependencies F + that include only attributes in Ri.
• A decomposition is dependency preserving, if
(F1  F2  …  Fn )+ = F +
• Using the above definition, testing for dependency preservation take
exponential time.
• Not that if a decomposition is NOT dependency preserving then
checking updates for violation of functional dependencies may
require computing joins, which is expensive.
Dependency Preservation (Cont.)
• Let F be the set of dependencies on schema R and let R1, R2 , .., Rn be a
decomposition of R.
• The restriction of F to Ri is the set Fi of all functional dependencies in F +
that include only attributes of Ri .
• Since all functional dependencies in a restriction involve attributes of only
one relation schema, it is possible to test such a dependency for
satisfaction by checking only one relation.
• Note that the definition of restriction uses all dependencies in in F +, not
just those in F.
• The set of restrictions F1, F2 , .. , Fn is the set of functional dependencies
that can be checked efficiently.
Testing for Dependency Preservation
 To check if a dependency    is preserved in a decomposition of R into R1, R2,
…, Rn , we apply the following test (with attribute closure done with respect to F)
• result = 
repeat
for each Ri in the decomposition
t = (result  Ri)+  Ri
result = result  t
until (result does not change)
• If result contains all attributes in , then the functional dependency    is preserved.
 We apply the test on all dependencies in F to check if a decomposition is
dependency preserving
 This procedure takes polynomial time, instead of the exponential time required
to compute F+ and (F1  F2  …  Fn)+
Dependency Preservation Example
• Consider a schema:
dept_advisor(s_ID, i_ID, department_name)
• With function dependencies:
i_ID  dept_name
s_ID, dept_name  i_ID
• In the above design we are forced to repeat the department name once for
each time an instructor participates in a dept_advisor relationship.
• To fix this, we need to decompose dept_advisor
• Any decomposition will not include all the attributes in
s_ID, dept_name  i_ID
• Thus, the composition NOT be dependency-preserving
Third Normal Form
• A relation schema R is in third normal form (3NF) if for all:
   in F+
at least one of the following holds:
•    is trivial (i.e.,   )
•  is a superkey for R
• Each attribute A in  –  is contained in a candidate key for R.
(NOTE: each attribute may be in a different candidate key)
• If a relation is in BCNF it is in 3NF (since in BCNF one of the first two conditions
above must hold).
• Third condition is a minimal relaxation of BCNF to ensure dependency
preservation (will see why later).
3NF Example
• Consider a schema:
dept_advisor(s_ID, i_ID, dept_name)
• With function dependencies:
i_ID  dept_name
s_ID, dept_name  i_ID
• Two candidate keys = {s_ID, dept_name}, {s_ID, i_ID }
• We have seen before that dept_advisor is not in BCNF
• R, however, is in 3NF
• s_ID, dept_name is a superkey
• i_ID  dept_name and i_ID is NOT a superkey, but:
• { dept_name} – {i_ID } = {dept_name } and
• dept_name is contained in a candidate key
Redundancy in 3NF
• Consider the schema R below, which is in 3NF
• R = (J, K, L )
• F = {JK  L, L  K }
• And an instance table:

• What is wrong with the table?

• Repetition of information
• Need to use null values (e.g., to represent the relationship l2, k2
where there is no corresponding value for J)
Boyce-Codd Normal Form
• A relation schema R is in BCNF concerning a set F of
functional dependencies if for all functional
dependencies in F+ of the form

Where   R and   R, at least one of the following
holds:
•    is trivial (i.e.,   )
•  is a superkey for R
Boyce-Codd Normal Form (Cont.)
• Example schema that is not in BCNF:
in_dep (ID, name, salary, dept_name, building, budget )
because :
• dept_name building, budget
• holds on in_dep
• but
• dept_name is not a superkey
• When decompose in_dept into instructor and department
• instructor is in BCNF
• department is in BCNF
Decomposing a Schema into BCNF
• Let R be a schema that is not in BCNF. Let   be the FD that causes a
violation of BCNF.
• We decompose R into:
• ( U  )
• (R-(-))
• In our example of in_dep,
•  = dept_name
•  = building, budget
and in_dep is replaced by
• ( U  ) = ( dept_name, building, budget )
• ( R - (  -  ) ) = ( ID, name, dept_name, salary )
Example
• R = (A, B, C)
F = {A  B, B  C)
• R1 = (A, B), R2 = (B, C)
• Lossless-join decomposition:
R1  R2 = {B} and B  BC
• Dependency preserving
• R1 = (A, B), R2 = (A, C)
• Lossless-join decomposition:
R1  R2 = {A} and A  AB
• Not dependency preserving
(cannot check B  C without computing R1 R 2)
BCNF and Dependency Preservation
• It is not always possible to achieve both BCNF and dependency preservation
• Consider a schema:
dept_advisor(s_ID, i_ID, department_name)
• With function dependencies:
i_ID  dept_name
s_ID, dept_name  i_ID
• dept_advisor is not in BCNF
• i_ID is not a superkey.
• Any decomposition of dept_advisor will not include all the attributes in
s_ID, dept_name  i_ID
• Thus, the composition is NOT be dependency preserving
How good is BCNF?
• There are database schemas in BCNF that do not seem to be sufficiently
normalized
• Consider a relation
inst_info (ID, child_name, phone)
• where an instructor may have more than one phone and can have multiple
children
• Instance of inst_info
How good is BCNF? (Cont.)
• There are no non-trivial functional dependencies and therefore the
relation is in BCNF
• Insertion anomalies – i.e., if we add a phone 981-992-3443 to 99999,
we need to add two tuples
(99999, David, 981-992-3443)
(99999, William, 981-992-3443)
Comparison of BCNF and 3NF
• Advantages to 3NF over BCNF. Obtaining a 3NF design
without sacrificing losslessness or dependency
preservation is always possible.
• Disadvantages to 3NF.
• We may have to use null values to represent
possible meaningful relationships among data
items.
• There is the problem of repetition of information.
Higher Normal Forms
• It is better to decompose inst_info into:
• inst_child:

• inst_phone:

• This suggests the need for higher normal forms, such as the Fourth Normal
Form (4NF)