Question

Please I don’t have any idea. Although I’ve made some readings on the topic. All I know is it is used to make the data in the database more efficient and easy to handle. And It can also be used to save disk space. And lastly, if you used normalization. You will have to generate more tables.

Now I have a lot of questions to ask.
First, how will normalization help to save disk space or whatever space occupied by the database.
Second, Is it possible to add data on multiple tables using only 1 query.
Please help, I’m just a newbie wanting to learn from you. Thanks.

Answer 1

Ok, couple of things:

1. php has got nothing to do with this. normalization is about modelling data
2. normalization is not about saving disk space. It is about organizing data so that it is easily maintainable, which in turn is a way to maintain data-integrity.
3. normalization is typically described in a few stages or ‘normal forms’. In practice, people that design relational databases often intuitively ‘get it right’ most of the time. But it is still good to be aware of the normal forms and what their characteristics are. There is a lot of documentation on that on the internet (fe http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Database_normalization), and you should certainly do you own research, but the most important stages are:

unormalized data: in this stage, data is not truly tabular (‘relational’). There is a lot of discussion of what tabular really means, and experts disagree with one another. but most people agree that data is unnormalized in case there are multi-valued attributes (=columns that can for one row contain lists as value), or in case there are repeating groups (=multiple columns or multiple groups of columns for storing the same type of data)

Example of multi-valued column: person (first_name, last_name, phonenumbers)
Here, phonenumbers implies there could be more phonenumbers, stored in one column

Example of repeating group: person(first_name, last_name, child1_first_name, child1_birth_date, child2_first_name, child2_birth_date…, childN_first_name, childN_birth_date)
Here, the person table has a number of column pairs (child_first_name, child_birth_date) to store the person’s children.

Note that something like order (shipping_address, billing_address) is not a repeating group: the addresses for billing and shipping may be similar pieces of data, but each has its own distinct role for an order, both just represent a different aspect of an order. child1 thru child10 do not – children do not have specific roles, and the list of children is variable (you never know how many groups you should reserve in advance)

In both cases, multi-valued columns and repeating groups, you basically have “nested table” structure – a table within a table. Data is said to be in 1NF (first normal form) if neither of these occur.

The 1NF is about structural characeristics: the tabular form of the data. All subsequenct normal forms have to do with eliminating redundancy. Redundancy occurs when the same information is independently stored multiple times. Redundancy is bad: if you want to change some fact, you have to change it in multiple places. If you forget to chance one of them, you have inconsistent data – the data is contradicting itself.

There are a lot of processes that can eliminate redundancy, each leading to a higher normal form, all the way from 1nf up to 6nf. However, typically most databases are adequately normalized at 3nf (or a lsight variation of that called boyce-codd normal form, BCNF) You should study 2nf and 3nf, but the principle is very simple: a table is adequately normalized, if:

1. the table is in 1nf
2. the table has a key (a column or column combination whose values are required, and which uniquely identifies a row – ie. there can be only one row having that combination of values in the key columns)
3. there are no functional dependencies between the non-key columns
4. non-key columns are not functionally dependent upon part of the key (but are completely functionally dependent upon the entire key).

functional dependency means that a column’s value can be derived from another column. simple example:

order_item (order_id, item_number, customer_id, product_code, product_description, amount)

let’s assume (order_id, item_number) is key. product_code and product description are functionally dependent upon each other: for one particular product_code, you will always find the same product description (as if product description is a function of product_code). The problem is now: suppose a product description changes for a particualr product code, you have to change all orders that us that product_code. forget only one and you have an inconsistent database.

The way to solve it is to create a new product table with (product_code, product_description), having (product_code) as key, and then instead of storing all product fields in order, only store a reference to a row in the product table in the order_item records (in this case, order_item should only keep product_code, which is sufficient to look up a row in the product table and find the product_description)

So as you u can see, with this solution you do actually save space (by not storing all these product descriptions in each order_item that happens to order the product) and you do get more tables (split off product from order_item) But just remember that it is not because of saving diskspace: it is because you eliminate redundancy, thus making it easier to maintain the data. because now you only have to change one row in the product table to change the description