Re: Dawn doesn't like 1NF

Alfredo Novoa wrote:

> On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 08:48:55 -0400, "Laconic2" <laconic2_at_comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
>

>>But the limitation to simple attributes has no such counterpart in the
>>mathematics of relations.  In particular, a domain can be a domain of
>>relations in math.  Not in the relational data model of 1970.

Answer by asking if a query will need to split the string. If yes, it has internal structure and is not atomic. If no, it is atomic. Only a single instance of yes renders it complex.

The only way to confuse yourself over this is to mistake the internal patterns of a column's contents for meaningful sub-atomic values. So if the column "COMPANY_NAME" tends to have a lot of instances of the same sub-atomic values ", Inc." and ", LLC", we mistakenly conclude that the string must be further split to assure data correctness. But this is not true, the string is in fact atomic, it just so happens to have repeating patterns inside of it. So long as the strings are picked up and dropped onto correspondence unaltered, the string is atomic.

-- 
Kenneth Downs
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