Re: A Normalization Question

> Yes, and as I explained before, if I give you the tuple
> (1,"brown","brown",???) and you cannot know what the third string is, then
> the third string is by definition not logically redundant. Since this
> holds for all three strings it follows that there is no logical redundancy
> here and hence there is nothing to be normalized here.

Yes, and as I explained before, your/RM's definition/theory is limited because it doesn't allow you to recognize that the string 'brown' is redundant in the following tuple:

1, "brown", "brown", ???

Because the first string 'brown' (which names a person?) and the second string 'brown' (which names a color?) are in fact representing the same thing (string 'brown'), it is redundant. These string also name other things (a person, a color) which are different. A string is a thing, just as a person or a color. If you have two things in a db that represent the same person, it is redundant. If you have two things in a db that represent the same color, it is redundant. If you have two things in a db that represent the same string, it is redundant and can be normalized approximately as shown below and updating it from 'brown' to 'nworb' or 'brownt' does not create an update anomaly (unsynchronized data).

Thing Person Color Street
1 ->2 ->3 ->4

Person Name
2 ->5

Color Name
3 ->5

Street Name
4 ->5

String Sym1 Sym2 Sym3 Sym4 Sym5 ....
5 ->6, ->7, ->8, ->9, ->10

Symbol

6      b
7      r
8      o
9      w
10     n