Base Normal Form

From: David Cressey <david.cressey_at_earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 04 Jul 2005 01:48:23 GMT
Message-ID: <Hz0ye.16944$eM6.7302@newsread3.news.atl.earthlink.net>

I'd like to suggest a new Normal Form definition, one that I'm calling Base Normal Form, for lack of a better term.

The purpose is NOT to advance theory any further. It's to make it easier to teach introductory database design.

Here it is:

A table is in base normal form if and only if it has at least one candidate key.

Note that the definition is for tables and not relations. All relations are in Base Normal Form, so the definition is superfluous with regard to relations.

I haven't defined candidate key, but I would want the definition to be compatible with the definition of candidate key as used in BCNF.

I'm speculating that this definition, together with BCNF, would be sufficient to cover introductory DB design, skipping over 1NF, 2NF, and 3NF, and leaving normal forms beyond BCNF for more advanced treatement. Received on Sun Jul 03 2005 - 20:48:23 CDT