NORMALIZATION

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.

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 STAFF is not in 1NF because of multi-valued attribute STAFF_PHONE.

o STAFF table:

STAFF_ID STAFF_NAME STAFF_PHONE STAFF_CITY

14 Bhanu 7272826385, Vijayawada

9064738238

20 Prasad 8574783832 Vijayawada

12 Rama 7390372389, Guntur

8589830302
 o The decomposition of the STAFF table into 1NF has been shown below:

STAFF_ID STAFF_NAME STAFF_PHONE STAFF_CITY

14 Bhanu 7272826385 Vijayawada

14 Bhanu 9064738238 Vijayawada

20 Prasad 8574783832 Vijayawada

12 Rama 7390372389 Guntur

12 Rama 8589830302 Guntur

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 college can store the data of faculty and the subjects they teach. In a
college, a faculty can teach more than one subject.
FACULTY table

FAC_ID SUBJECT FAC_AGE

25 Chemistry 30

25 Biology 30

47 English 35

83 Math 38

83 Computer 38

o In the given table, non-prime attribute FAC_AGE is dependent on FAC_ID which is a

proper subset of a candidate key. That's why it violates the rule for 2NF.
o To convert the given table into 2NF, we decompose it into two tables:
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o FACULTY_DETAIL table:

FAC_ID FAC_AGE

25 30

47 35

83 38

o FACULTY_SUBJECT table:

FAC_ID SUBJECT

25 Chemistry

25 Biology

47 English

83 Math

83 Computer

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:
STAFF_DETAIL table:

STAFF_ID STAFF_NAME PINCODE STATE STAFF_CITY

222 Bhanu 520001 AP Vijayawada

333 Prasad 530001 AP Guntur

444 Rama 500001 TG Hyderabad

555 Rao 500010 TG Hyderabad

666 Sri 520003 AP Vijayawada

Super key in the table above:
{STAFF_ID}, {STAFF_ID, STAFF_NAME}, {STAFF_ID, STAFF_NAME, PINCODE
}....so on
Candidate key: {STAFF_ID}
Non-prime attributes: In the given table, all attributes except STAFF_ID are non-prime.
Here, STATE & STAFF_CITY dependent on PINCODE and PINCODE dependent on
STAFF_ID. The non-prime attributes (STATE, STAFF_CITY) transitively dependent on
super key(STAFF_ID). It violates the rule of third normal form.
That's why we need to move the STAFF_CITY and STATE to the new
<STAFF_PINCODE> table, with PINCODE as a Primary key.

STAFF table:

STAFF_ID STAFF_NAME PINCODE

222 Bhanu 520001

333 Prasad 530001

444 Rama 500001

555 Rao 500010

666 Sri 520003

 STAFF_ZIP table:

PINCODE STATE STAFF_CITY

520001 AP Vijayawada

530001 AP Guntur

500001 TG Hyderabad

500010 TG Hyderabad

520003 AP Vijayawada

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 staff work in more than one department.

STAFF table:

STAFF_ID STAFF_COUNTRY STAFF_DEPT DEPT_TYPE STAFF_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. STAFF_ID → STAFF_COUNTRY
2. STAFF_DEPT → {DEPT_TYPE, STAFFP_DEPT_NO}

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

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The table is not in BCNF because neither STAFF_DEPT nor STAFF_ID alone are keys.
To convert the given table into BCNF, we decompose it into three tables:

STAFF_COUNTRY table:

STAFF_ID STAFF_COUNTRY

264 India

264 India
STAFF_DEPT table:

STAFF_DEPT DEPT_TYPE STAFF_DEPT_NO

Designing D394 283

Testing D394 300

Stores D283 232

Developing D283 549

STAFF_DEPT_MAPPING table:

STAFF_ID STAFF_DEPT

D394 283

D394 300

D283 232

D283 549
Functional dependencies:
1. STAFF_ID → STAFF_COUNTRY
2. STAFF_DEPT → {DEPT_TYPE, STAFF_DEPT_NO}
Candidate keys:
For the first table: STAFF_ID
For the second table: STAFF_DEPT
For the third table: {STAFF_ID,STAFF_DEPT}
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:.6M
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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

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 Prasad Semester 1

Computer Rao Semester 1

Math Bhanu Semester 1

Math Babu Semester 2

Chemistry Sri 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:

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SEMESTER SUBJECT

Semester 1 Computer

Semester 1 Math

Semester 1 Chemistry

Semester 2 Math

P2

SUBJECT LECTURER

Computer Prasad

Computer Rao

Math Bhanu

Math Babu

Chemistry Sri
P3

SEMSTER LECTURER

Semester 1 Prasad

Semester 1 Rao

Semester 1 Bhanu

Semester 2 Babu

Semester 1 Sri
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

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 Mani 28 Mumbai 827 Sales

33 Sri 25 Delhi 438 Marketing

46 Satya 30 Bangalore 869 Finance

52 Rao 36 Mumbai 575 Production

60 Balaji 40 Noida 678 Testing

The above relation is decomposed into two relations EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT
EMPLOYEE table:20.3M413History of Java
EMP_ID EMP_NAME EMP_AGE EMP_CITY

22 Mani 28 Mumbai

33 Sri 25 Delhi

46 Satya 30 Bangalore

52 Rao 36 Mumbai

60 Balaji 40 Noida

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 Mani 28 Mumbai 827 Sales

33 Sri 25 Delhi 438 Marketing

46 Satya 30 Bangalore 869 Finance

52 Rao 36 Mumbai 575 Production

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

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 multi determined MANUF_YEAR" and "BIKE_MODEL
multi determined COLOR".

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