Re: 2nd Normal Form Question

From: Jan Hidders <hidders_at_gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 8 Feb 2008 08:59:25 -0800 (PST)
Message-ID: <3c0c26bc-65d3-44b8-bf91-ea32c0b4a917_at_i7g2000prf.googlegroups.com>


On 8 feb, 17:39, Bob Badour <bbad..._at_pei.sympatico.ca> wrote:
> gamehack wrote:
> > Hi all,
>
> > I'm currently evaluating whether a relation is in 2NF. The relation is
> > defined as follows:
> > <Year | Winner Name | Winner Votes | Party | Home State> in the
> > context of an election. I've given a sample relation below.
> > 1946 | MyName | 453 | MyParty | California
> > The primary key for this relation is 'Year'.
>
> > Now the question is whether this relation is in 2NF? What confuses me
> > is that some books say the following:
> > "Note that when a 1NF table has no composite candidate keys (candidate
> > keys consisting of more than one attribute), the table is
> > automatically in 2NF."
>
> I am not sure where you read that. It sounds like a typo or a mistake.
> Composite keys are important at the higher normal forms.

Of course, but all that it says is that if you have determined all the candidate keys and they happen all to be not-composite then a 1NF is always also in 2NF. I'm sure you agree that this is correct.

  • Jan Hidders
Received on Fri Feb 08 2008 - 17:59:25 CET

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