User Name Password Register
DaniWeb IT Discussion Community
All
What is DaniWeb IT Discussion Community?
You're currently browsing the Database Design section within the Web Development category of DaniWeb, a massive community of 427,779 software developers, web developers, Internet marketers, and tech gurus who are all enthusiastic about making contacts, networking, and learning from each other. In fact, there are 3,772 IT professionals currently interacting right now! Registration is free, only takes a minute and lets you enjoy all of the interactive features of the site.
Please support our Database Design advertiser: Programming Forums
Views: 1081 | Replies: 0
Reply
Join Date: Jul 2007
Posts: 1
Reputation: dboxer is an unknown quantity at this point 
Rep Power: 0
Solved Threads: 0
dboxer dboxer is offline Offline
Newbie Poster

2NF and Multi-candidate Keys

  #1  
Jul 8th, 2007
The 2NF states that all non-key attributes must be fully functionally dependent on the candidate key. I was wondering would the relation be in 2NF if "each" individual candidate key determines all other attributes including other candidate keys not presented on the left-hand side?

What if a dependency only determines "all" the non-keys rather than all the non-keys + other candidate keys? Let's assume we have the following relation: R (PK, CCK1, CCK2, CCK3, CCK4, CCK5, NK1, NK2, NK3). This relation contains three candidate keys: PK (which is the primary key of the relation), {CCK1, CCK2} <-- The second candidate key, and {CCK3, CCK4, CCK5} as the third candidate key.

If there is a dependency that states {CCK1, CCK2} -> {PK, CCK3, CCK4, CCK5, NK1, NK2, NK3}, is this FD in 2NF? How about {CCK1, CCK2} -> {CCK3, CCK4, CCK5, NK1, NK2, NK3}? What about partial dependency of one candidate key unto another candidate key, for instance, {CCK1, CCk2} -> {PK, CCK3, CCK4, NK1, NK2, NK3}? Notice CCK2 is missing from the dependency.

The first example perhaps is indeed in 2NF but what about the latter FD? The reason I am confused is that the definition of 2NF does not indicate any fully functionally dependency on the candidate keys and only talks about non-key attributes.


Any insight would be greatly appreciated.
AddThis Social Bookmark Button
Reply With Quote  
Reply

Only community members can participate in forum threads. You must register or log in to contribute.

DaniWeb Database Design Marketplace
Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)

 

Thread Tools Display Modes

Similar Threads
Other Threads in the Database Design Forum

All times are GMT -4. The time now is 1:26 pm.
Forum system based on vBulletin Copyright ©2000 - 2008, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
©2003 - 2008 DaniWeb® LLC