Access Database Design and Programming, Second Edition

First Normal Form

First normal form is very simple. A table scheme is said to be in first normal form if the attribute values are indivisible. To illustrate, we considered in Chapter 1 the question of including all the authors of a book in a single attribute, called Authors. Here is an example entity:

ISBN = 0-55-123456-9
Title = Main Street
Authors = Jones, H. and Smith, K.
Publisher = Small House

Since the table scheme in this case allows more than one author name for the Authors attribute, the scheme is not in first normal form. Indeed, one of the obvious problems with the Authors attribute is that it is impossible to sort the data by individual author name. It is also more difficult to, for instance, prepare a mailing label for each author, and so on.

Attributes that allow only indivisible values are said to be scalar attributes or atomic attributes. By contrast, an attribute whose values can be, for example, a list of items (such as a list of authors) is said to be a structured attribute . Thus, a table scheme is in first normal form if all of its attributes are atomic. Good database design almost always requires that all attributes be atomic, so that the table scheme is in first normal form.

In general, making the adjustments necessary to ensure first normal form is not hard, and it is a good general rule that table schemes should be put in first normal form. However, as with the other normal forms (and even more so the higher up we go) each situation must be considered on its own merits. For instance, a single field might be designed to hold a street address, such as 1333 Bessemer Street. Whether the house number and the street name should be separated into distinct attributes is a matter of context. Put another way, whether or not a street address is atomic depends upon the context. If there is reason to manipulate the street numbers apart from the street names, then they should certainly constitute their own attribute. Otherwise, perhaps not.