Database Normalization via Nonrepeating Groups: A Comparative Methodological Approach by Lemmas

This research proposes an approach that uses nonrepeating groups as the basis for decomposing relations. A repeating group refers to a column or set of columns that have duplicated data values. The typical process of normalization begins with the identification of repeating groups but instead of using these to drive the process, the researchers propose the use of the complement of repeating groups, the nonrepeating groups from the Unnormalized Form (UNF) through First Normal Form (1NF). The rest of the stages, from the Second Normal Form (2NF) through Third Normal Form (3NF) will follow the usual normalization flow. As part of the process, four lemmas shall be introduced at different stages and conveniently to facilitate the forward-bound, efficient flow of the process. The result is a normalization process whose intermediate stages and steps may differ from those typical of a repeating group-driven process albeit the final resultant, relational structures shall be comparable to those yielded via repeating groups approach. Should the nonrepeating group approach yield similar results as a repeating group-driven approach, the term normalization equivalence could be used i.e., if a relation normalized via repeating groups yields a similar result set as a nonrepeating group process, then the two approaches are said to be normalization equivalent. Otherwise, there is normalization inequivalence.