MIRPUR UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

DEPARMENT OF SOFTWARE ENGINEERING

 DATABASE SYSTEMS
(Lecture # 11)
Advance Normal Forms

Engr. Samiullah Khan

(Lecturer)
 LECTURE CONTENTS

1. Advance Normal Forms

2. Boyce-Codd Normal Form

3. Fourth Normal Form

4. Fifth Normal Form

Database Systems 3
 Chapter 4:
Logical Database Design
and the Relational Model
Modern Database Management
12th Edition
Jeffrey A. Hoffer, Mary B. Prescott,
Fred R. McFadden
 Advance Normal Forms

1. Boyce-Codd Normal Form

2. Fourth Normal Form

3. Fifth Normal Form

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 Boyce-Codd Normal Form

Boyce-Codd Normal Form is violated if:

• Third Normal Form is violated

• If there exists a partial key which is functionally dependent
on a non-key field(s).
non-key partial-key

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 BCNF Example
• A student can have more than one major
• A student has a different advisor for each major
• Each advisor advises for only one major

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 BCNF Description
• Primary Key for this relation is composite key consisting of SID and Major
• Thus, two attributes Advisor and MajGPA are functionally dependent on this
primary key
• There exist another functional dependence i.e. Major (a key attribute) is
functionally dependent on Advisor (non-key attribute)
• That is, each advisor advises in exactly one major
• Notice that it is not a Transitive Dependency

• Is the above relation in 3rd Normal Form?

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 Definition of BCNF

• A relation is in BCNF if and only if every determinant

in the relation is Candidate Key
• STUDENT_ADVISOR relation is not in BCNF
because although the attribute Advisor is a
determinant, it is not a candidate key
• Only Major is functionally dependent on Advisor

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 Converting a Relation to BCNF

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Converting a Relation to BCNF

11
 Fourth Normal Form – 4NF
4th Normal Form is violated if:
• Boyce Codd Normal Form is violated
• If there exists a partial key which has multiple independent
multi-valued functional dependencies to other partial keys
partial-key1 partial-key2
partial-key3
• Multi-valued Dependency exists when there are at
least 3 attributes (e.g, A, B and C) in a relation, and for
each value of A there is a set of values of B and a set
of values of C

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 Example 1 – 4NF

Instruments_Languages

Name Instrument Language

Fred Piano French
Fred Flute Italian
Fred Flute Spanish
Jane Piano French
Jane Oboe French
Sam Piano French
Sam Oboe Spanish
Sam Flute Spanish

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 4NF Example – Violation

Name Instrument Language

Fred Piano French
Fred Flute Italian
Fred Flute Spanish
Jane Piano French
Jane Oboe French
Sam Piano French
Sam Oboe Spanish
Sam Flute Spanish

Does this relation violate 1st, 2nd, 3rd, or BCNF?

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 4NF Example – Correction

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 Example 2 – 4NF

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 Example 2 – 4NF

17
 5NF

• It deals with property called “Lossless joins”

• 5NF is not of practical significance because lossless joins occurs very
rarely and are difficult to detect
• For this reason (and also because 5NF has a complex definition), we
do not describe 5NF in this text

• For detail visit

http://ecomputernotes.com/database-system/rdbms/fifth-normal-form

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 Domain Key Normal Form (DKNF)

• It takes into account all possible types of dependencies

and constraints
• Although the definition of DKNF is quite simple, its
practical value is minimal

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 Merging Relations
• View Integration – Merging relations (also called view integration)
is combining entities from multiple ER models into common
relations

• Issues to watch out for when merging entities from different ER

models:
• Synonyms–Two or more attributes with different names but same meaning
i.e. Employee_ID and Employee_No

• Homonyms–Attributes with same name but different meanings i.e. Address is

converted to HomeAdd and OffAdd

• STUDENT(StudentID, Name, PhoneNo, CampusAddress, PermanentAddress)

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 Merging Relations

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 Merging Relations
• Transitive dependencies –Even if relations are in 3NF prior to
merging, they may become in 2NF due to transitive dependencies
between non-key attributes

• STUDENT1(StudentID, MajorName)
STUDENT2(StudentID, Advisor)

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 Merging Relations
• Super-type/subtype relationships –These relationships may be
hidden prior to merging i.e. Patient-> ResPatient and OutPatient

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THANKS