Courses/Computer Science/CPSC 203/CPSC 203 2007Summer L60/CPSC 203 2007Summer L60 Labs/Lab 4

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Mini-Tutorial: Database Design Guidelines

Fabian Pascal in "Practical Issues in Database Management" has aptly summarized the essence of database design with respect to normaliztion as, "The Key, the Whole Key and Nothing but the Key". Recognizing "base sets" in a database, and tying them to unique keys takes on far along the path of database design. We will not cover "Normalization" proper in this course, but will sample from Normalization theory to offer the following general guidelines in developing a database as a series of related tables:

  1. Identify the unique "Primary" key (stands in for the members of the base set).
  2. Remove repeating groups (they are essentially parts of the same base set).
  3. Break out columns that are dependant on each other into another table.
  4. Make sure all the other columns in a table depend on the unique Primary key.

Resources

"Practical Issues in Database Management. Chapter 5. By Fabian Pascal.

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