Entity and Attribute Shape: First Normal Form

The First Normal Form is centered around making sure that entities and
attributes are shaped
correctly. The requirements largely mirror the requirements for a relation in
relational theories.
For an entity to be in First Normal Form, it must have the following
characteristics:
• All attributes must be atomic; that is, only a single value represented in a
single
attribute in a single instance of an entity.
• All instances of an entity must contain the same number of values.
• All instances of an entity must be different.
First Normal Form violations manifest themselves in the implemented
model with messy
data-handling situations, usually because of having to decode multiple
values stored where a
single one should be.

Non-key attributes must provide a detail about the key, the whole key, and
nothing but
the key.
This means that non-key attributes have to further describe the key of the
entity, and not
describe any other attributes. I’ll cover the following Normal Forms:
• Second Normal Form: Relationships between non-key attributes and part
of the
primary key
• Third Normal Form: Relationships between non-key attributes
• BCNF: Relationships between non-key attributes and any key