Create database designs that scale, meet business requirements, and inherently work toward keeping your data structured and usable in the face of changing business models and software systems. This book is about database design theory. Design theory is the scientific foundation for database design, just as the relational model is the scientific foundation for database technology in general. Databases lie at the heart of so much of what we do in the computing world that negative impacts of poor design can be extraordinarily widespread. This second edition includes greatly expanded coverage of exotic and little understood normal forms such as: essential tuple normal form (ETNF), redundancy free normal form (RFNF), superkey normal form (SKNF), sixth normal form (6NF), and domain key normal form (DKNF). Also included are new appendixes, including one that provides an in-depth look into the crucial notion of data consistency.Sequencing of topics has been improved, and many explanations and examples have been rewritten and clarified based upon the author’s teaching of the content in instructor-led courses. This book aims to be different from other books on design by bridging the gap between the theory of design and the practice of design. The book explains theory in a way that practitioners should be able to understand, and it explains why that theory is of considerable practical importance. Reading this book provides you with an important theoretical grounding on which to do the practical work of database design. Reading the book also helps you in going to and understanding the more academic texts as you build your base of knowledge and expertise. Anyone with a professional interest in database design can benefit from using this book as a stepping-stone toward a more rigorous design approach and more lasting database models. What You Will Learn Understand what design theory is and is not Be aware of the two different goals of normalization Know which normal forms are truly significant Apply design theory in practice Be familiar with techniques for dealing with redundancy Understand what consistency is and why it is crucially important Who This Book Is For Those having a professional interest in database design, including data and database administrators; educators and students specializing in database matters; information modelers and database designers; DBMS designers, implementers, and other database vendor personnel; and database consultants. The book is product independent.

Since databases are at the center of the IT world, their proper design would seem to be paramount. And yet, some of the popular references on database design theory and design best practice show a curious lack of understanding by the IT industry at large. In this O’Reilly report, C.J. Date—a prominent researcher and consultant specializing in relational database theory—clarifies exactly what database design is, or ought to be. After providing concise definitions of physical and logical database design, Date dives deeper into the subject of logical design. Specifically, he covers concepts such as table predicate, business rule, uncontrolled redundancy, and consistency. Once you digest this report, you can find more detailed information in Date’s book Database Design and Relational Theory: Normal Forms and All That Jazz (O’Reilly, 2012). C.J. Date has a stature that is unique within the database industry. He is a prolific writer, and is well known for his best-selling textbook An Introduction to Database Systems (Addison Wesley).

No matter what DBMS you are using—Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL—misunderstandings can always arise over the precise meanings of terms, misunderstandings that can have a serious effect on the success of your database projects. For example, here are some common database terms: attribute, BCNF, consistency, denormalization, predicate, repeating group, join dependency. Do you know what they all mean? Are you sure? The New Relational Database Dictionary defines all of these terms and many, many more. Carefully reviewed for clarity, accuracy, and completeness, this book is an authoritative and comprehensive resource for database professionals, with over 1700 entries (many with examples) dealing with issues and concepts arising from the relational model of data. DBAs, database designers, DBMS implementers, application developers, and database professors and students can find the information they need on a daily basis, information that isn’t readily available anywhere else.

Time and Relational Theory provides an in-depth description of temporal database systems, which provide special facilities for storing, querying, and updating historical and future data. Traditionally, database management systems provide little or no special support for temporal data at all. This situation is changing because: Cheap storage enables retention of large volumes of historical data in data warehouses Users are now faced with temporal data problems, and need solutions Temporal features have recently been incorporated into the SQL standard, and vendors have begun to add temporal support to their DBMS products Based on the groundbreaking text Temporal Data & the Relational Model (Morgan Kaufmann, 2002) and new research led by the authors, Time and Relational Theory is the only book to offer a complete overview of the functionality of a temporal DBMS. Expert authors Nikos Lorentzos, Hugh Darwen, and Chris Date describe an approach to temporal database management that is firmly rooted in classical relational theory and will stand the test of time. This book covers the SQL:2011 temporal extensions in depth and identifies and discusses the temporal functionality still missing from SQL. Understand how the relational model provides an ideal basis for taming the complexities of temporal databases Learn how to analyze and evaluate commercial temporal products with this timely and important information Be able to use sound principles in designing and using temporal databases Understand the temporal support recently added to SQL with coverage of the new SQL features in this unique, accurate, and authoritative reference Appreciate the benefits of a truly relational approach to the problem with this clear, user friendly presentation

All of today’s mainstream database products support the SQL language, and relational theory is what SQL is supposed to be based on. But are those products truly relational? Sadly, the answer is no. This book shows you what a real relational product would be like, and how and why it would be so much better than what’s currently available. With this unique book, you will: Learn how to see database systems as programming systems Get a careful, precise, and detailed definition of the relational model Explore a detailed analysis of SQL from a relational point of view There are literally hundreds of books on relational theory or the SQL language or both. But this one is different. First, nobody is more qualified than Chris Date to write such a book. He and Ted Codd, inventor of the relational model, were colleagues for many years, and Chris’s involvement with the technology goes back to the time of Codd’s first papers in 1969 and 1970. Second, most books try to use SQL as a vehicle for teaching relational theory, but this book deliberately takes the opposite approach. Its primary aim is to teach relational theory as such. Then it uses that theory as a vehicle for teaching SQL, showing in particular how that theory can help with the practical problem of using SQL correctly and productively. Any computer professional who wants to understand what relational systems are all about can benefit from this book. No prior knowledge of databases is assumed.

Views are virtual tables. That means they should be updatable, just as "real" or base tables are. In fact, view updatability isn’t just desirable, it’s crucial, for practical reasons as well as theoretical ones. But view updating has always been a controversial topic. Ever since the relational model first appeared, there has been widespread skepticism as to whether (in general) view updating is even possible. In stark contrast to this conventional wisdom, this book shows how views, just like base tables, can always be updated (so long as the updates don’t violate any integrity constraints). More generally, it shows how updating always ought to work, regardless of whether the target is a base table or a view. The proposed scheme is 100% consistent with the relational model, but rather different from the way updating works in SQL products today. This book can: Help database products improve in the future Help with a "roll your own" implementation, absent such product improvements Make you aware of the crucial role of predicates and constraints Show you how relational products are really supposed to behave Anyone with a professional interest in the relational model, relational technology, or database systems in general can benefit from this book.

Chris Date, one of the founders of the relational model, has updated and expanded his relational database dictionary to include more than 900 terms.

Avoid misunderstandings that can affect the design, programming, and use of database systems. Whether you're using Oracle, DB2, SQL Server, MySQL, or PostgreSQL, The Relational Database Dictionary will prevent confusion about the precise meaning of database-related terms (e.g., attribute, 3NF, one-to-many correspondence, predicate, repeating group, join dependency), helping to ensure the success of your database projects. Carefully reviewed for clarity, accuracy, and completeness, this authoritative and comprehensive quick-reference contains more than 600 terms, many with examples, covering issues and concepts arising from the relational model of data. This one-of-a-kind dictionary provides a single, compact source where DBAs, database designers, DBMS implementers, application developers, and database professors and students can find the accurate definitions they need on a daily basis, information that isn't readily available anywhere else. If you're working with or learning about relational databases, you need this pocket-sized quick-reference.

This book sheds light on the principles behind the relational model, which is fundamental to all database-backed applications--and, consequently, most of the work that goes on in the computing world today. Database in Depth: The Relational Model for Practitioners goes beyond the hype and gets to the heart of how relational databases actually work.Ideal for experienced database developers and designers, this concise guide gives you a clear view of the technology--a view that's not influenced by any vendor or product. Featuring an extensive set of exercises, it will help you: understand why and how the relational model is still directly relevant to modern database technology (and will remain so for the foreseeable future) see why and how the SQL standard is seriously deficient use the best current theoretical knowledge in the design of their databases and database applications make informed decisions in their daily database professional activities Database in Depth will appeal not only to database developers and designers, but also to a diverse field of professionals and academics, including database administrators (DBAs), information modelers, database consultants, and more. Virtually everyone who deals with relational databases should have at least a passing understanding of the fundamentals of working with relational models.Author C.J. Date has been involved with the relational model from its earliest days. An exceptionally clear-thinking writer, Date lays out principle and theory in a manner that is easily understood. Few others can speak as authoritatively the topic of relational databases as Date can.