Re: transitive dependency

"Bret A. Murphy" wrote:
>
> I am a little confused on the definition of this term. Looking at example:
>
> employee number > name, telephone, hrs_worked, pay_rate
>
> This is a makeshift table, with employee number being primary key and non-key
> attritbutes to the right.
>
> This might not be the best example, but assume pay rate is dependent on
> hrs_worked, hence, transitive dependency. But, creating another table with
> hrs_worked as primary key does not make sense, does it?

If I assume that pay_rate is dependent on hrs_worked for that employee, I have emp#,hrs_worked-->pay_rate. I also have emp#-->name,telephone. This means that your above table is not 3NF. To make it 3NF, break into two tables:

  Table 1: emp#, hrs_worked, pay_rate
  Table 2: emp#, name, telephone

HTH,
Brian Received on Mon Nov 08 1999 - 09:25:47 CST