Need some help on Normalization

[Lollie]

You identify the following attributes, in part, for the Employee
entity:
Employee number (Primary key)
Full name
Phone number
Supervisor number

What change should you make to ensure that the entity is normalized to
the 1st normal form (1NF)?

A) Separate the full name into first, middle (optional), and last
names.
B) Use a different primary key value.
C) Move the supervisor to a different table.
D) Separate the phone number into separate fields.

I see the table as looking like this:
*Emp # (PK) Full name Phone# Supervisor#*
123 Joe Smith 123-4567 1
888 John Doe 555-1212 2
316 Jack Pi 888-8080 1
451 Suzy Q 457-7410 3

Anybody have any comments? Thanks is advance - is there an answer

[gazzag]

There is an answer. What do you think it might be, and why?

-g

[Palooka]

Sheila wrote:
> You identify the following attributes, in part, for the Employee
> entity:
> Employee number (Primary key)
> Full name
> Phone number
> Supervisor number
>
> What change should you make to ensure that the entity is normalized to
> the 1st normal form (1NF)?
>
> A) Separate the full name into first, middle (optional), and last
> names.
> B) Use a different primary key value.
> C) Move the supervisor to a different table.
> D) Separate the phone number into separate fields.
>
> I see the table as looking like this:
> *Emp # (PK) Full name Phone# Supervisor#*
> 123 Joe Smith 123-4567 1
> 888 John Doe 555-1212 2
> 316 Jack Pi 888-8080 1
> 451 Suzy Q 457-7410 3
>
> Anybody have any comments? Thanks is advance - is there an answer

E) Not take the time or trouble to attempt to read up, understand the
issue and formulate an answer; just post the homework question on a
usenet group instead.

Palooka

[hpuxrac]

Sounds like homework to me.

What do you think 1NF, 2NF and 3NF are exactly?

How about 1nf specifically?

Anything about atomic values and/or repeating groups?

[William Robertson]

The question of how to normalise middle names is asking for trouble.
What about people with with two or more middle names? That and the
fact that they're optional (not to mention people with only one name)
suggests PERSON NAME is a separate entity in a one to one or many
relationship. Whether that is practical in a real-life database is
another question.

[Vladimir M. Zakharychev]

So I take it you side with Codd on the issue of "atomicity"? ;) To me,
this entity looks like it may already be in 1NF, it all depends on how
the domains are defined, exactly in line with William Robertson's
argument. However, the question is formulated in a way that suggests
its author is in agreement with Codd on atomic values and just chose a
bit controversial example to demonstrate the concept.

Regards,
Vladimir M. Zakharychev
N-Networks, makers of Dynamic PSP(tm)
http://www.dynamicpsp.com

[AM2]

On Oct 10, 9:01 am, Lollie <techtechx...@gmail.com> wrote:

I agree that the answer is E.
What if someone has more than one telephone number? No doubt,
telephone number should be in a separate table.