Database Design and Relational Theory: Normal Forms and All That Jazz

© C. J. Date 2019

C. J. DateDatabase Design and Relational Theoryhttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5540-7_8

8. Denormalization

C. J. Date¹ 

(1)

Healdsburg, California, USA

 

What’s normal, anyway?

—Anon.: Where Bugs Go

I want to say a few words about denormalization. Now, I haven’t considered, so far in this book, any level of normalization higher than BCNF (at least, not in detail). But denormalization, if it means anything at all, can’t apply just to BCNF specifically; I mean, it can’t refer just to dropping back to some level of normalization that’s lower than BCNF specifically. Rather, it has to mean dropping back from any given level of normalization to some lower one.

That said, however, I need to say too that relvars that are in BCNF and not ...