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Ass1 Normalization

The document describes an assignment to analyze and improve the normalization of a library database. The existing database has tables for books, customers, and loans that are not properly normalized. Students are asked to identify functional dependencies and determine the normal form of each table, explain problems caused by lack of normalization, and design an alternative database where all tables are in BCNF without loss of information.

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834 views

Ass1 Normalization

The document describes an assignment to analyze and improve the normalization of a library database. The existing database has tables for books, customers, and loans that are not properly normalized. Students are asked to identify functional dependencies and determine the normal form of each table, explain problems caused by lack of normalization, and design an alternative database where all tables are in BCNF without loss of information.

Uploaded by

Dhana
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Database Technology, 2004 Assignment 1: Normalization

Assignment I
Normalization (paper lab)
The purpose of this exercise is to get understanding of the different normal forms and of the problems that can be prevented by normalization. After the lab, the student should be able to determine if a database schema conforms to the Boyce-Codd normal form (BCNF). The students should be familiar with modeling real world scenarios in terms of ER model and translate an ER diagram into a relational database schema.

1 Preparations
Read about normalization in some database book.

2 Background reading
Elmasri/Navathe: chapters 10 and 3, sections 11.1 and 11.2.

3 The scenario A Library Database


The city library of Uppsala has a database to keep track of its books, the people who borrow books, and who has borrowed which books. The tables, with the data, are included below in part 5 and 6. (For well-known reasons, there are very few books in the library.) Unfortunately, the design of the database is not very good. Your mission is to analyze the problems with the design, and suggest a better one. The output of your work should be a report that addresses all the faults you find regarding normalization along with a description of why they are problematic. Furthermore you should develop an alternative design that is in BCNF.

4 Exercises
1) Specify all functional dependencies without redundancies (see definition of minimal sets of functional dependencies in section 10.2.4) for each table of the library database. Then state which normal form (1NF, 2NF, 3NF or BCNF) each of the existing tables is, and why. For each table that doesnt fulfill the requirements for BCNF, explain the problems that this lack of normalization has and their potential consequences. Give some examples. Design a new database, with different tables, where all the tables fulfill BCNF without losing any information.

2) 3)

Hints: consider dates as atomic (there is a type date in SQL); assume that there is one telephone number per address; you can choose any of the approaches for relational database design: top-down (starting with ER modeling) or bottom-up (starting with specification of all functional dependencies and applying a normalization algorithm). For more details see chapter 11 with sections 11.1 and 11.2, and section 7.1.

Database Technology, 2004 Assignment 1: Normalization

5 The schema of the existing database


There are three tables: A table called BOOK, which contains data about the books. It has the attributes TitleNr (a number that this library assigns), ISBN, CopyNr (which is used to separate different copies of the same book), Title, PublYear, Author, and AuthorNat. The primary key consists of TitleNr, CopyNr and Author. An alternative key is formed by ISBN, CopyNr and Author. A table called CUSTOMER, which contains data about the persons who can borrow books. It has the attributes CustomerNr (a unique number identifying a person, assigned by the library), PersonNr (which is a unique number identifying a person, assigned by the Swedish state), Name, Address, Tel, and NrBooks (the number of books that this person has borrowed at the moment). CustomerNr is the primary key. PersonNr is an alternative key. A table called LOAN, where the loans are stored. It has the attributes TitleNr, CopyNr, CustomerNr, Date (which is the date when the book was borrowed), and BorrowerName (which is the name of the customer who borrowed the book). The primary key consists of TitleNr and CopyNr.

6 The contents of the existing database


The tables look like this:
BOOK +---------+----------+--------+--------------+----------+--------------+-----------+ | TitleNr | ISBN | CopyNr | Title | PublYear | Author | AuthorNat | +---------+----------+--------+--------------+----------+--------------+-----------+ | 1 |0071148108| 1 | Database | 1997 | Silberschatz | USA | | 1 |0071148108| 1 | Database | 1997 | Korth | USA | | 1 |0071148108| 1 | Database | 1997 | Sudarshan | India | | 2 |0805317538| 1 | Fundamentals | 1994 | Elmasri | USA | | 2 |0805317538| 1 | Fundamentals | 1994 | Navathe | USA | | 2 |0805317538| 2 | Fundamentals | 1994 | Elmasri | USA | | 2 |0805317538| 2 | Fundamentals | 1994 | Navathe | USA | | 3 |0198642253| 1 | Mord | 1995 | Guillou | Sweden | | 3 |0198642253| 2 | Mord | 1995 | Guillou | Sweden | | 4 |3411021764| 1 | Vld | 1998 | Guillou | Sweden | +---------+----------+--------+--------------+----------+--------------+-----------+ CUSTOMER +------------+----------+----------------+---------+------+---------+ | CustomerNr | PersonNr | Name | Address | Tel | NrBooks | +------------+----------+----------------+---------+------+---------+ | 1 |6312111658| Padron-McCarthy| Vgen 7 |282677| 1 | | 2 |4403149901| Silberschatz | Gatan 6 |146000| 1 | | 3 |4010229910| Elmasri | Gatan 8 |241000| 1 | | 4 |4501129921| Schwarzenegger | Vgen 3 |174590| 0 | +------------+----------+----------------+---------+------+---------+ LOAN +---------+--------+------------+------+----------------+ | TitleNr | CopyNr | CustomerNr | Date | BorrowerName | +---------+--------+------------+------+----------------+ | 1 | 1 | 3 |7/1 98| Elmasri | | 3 | 2 | 1 |1/9 98| Padron-McCarthy| | 2 | 1 | 2 |7/1 98| Silberschatz | +---------+--------+------------+------+----------------+

7 Handing in solutions
Your report should contain your answers to the questions in part 4. The database design in exercise 4.3 should be presented as both ER diagram and the corresponding relational tables in format table_name(column1, column2,). Motivate why your relations are in BCNF by specifying all functional dependencies.

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