Relational Decomposition

• When a relation in the relational model is not in appropriate normal form then the decomposition of a relation is required.
• In a database, it breaks the table into multiple tables.
• If the relation has no proper decomposition, then it may lead to problems like loss of information.
• Decomposition is used to eliminate some of the problems of bad design like anomalies, inconsistencies, and redundancy.

Types of Decomposition

Lossless Decomposition

• If the information is not lost from the relation that is decomposed, then the decomposition will be lossless.
• The lossless decomposition guarantees that the join of relations will result in the same relation as it was decomposed.
• The relation is said to be lossless decomposition if natural joins of all the decomposition give the original relation.

Example:

EMPLOYEE_DEPARTMENT table:

EMP_ID	EMP_NAME	EMP_AGE	EMP_CITY	DEPT_ID	DEPT_NAME
22	Denim	28	Mumbai	827	Sales
33	Alina	25	Delhi	438	Marketing
46	Stephan	30	Bangalore	869	Finance
52	Katherine	36	Mumbai	575	Production
60	Jack	40	Noida	678	Testing

The above relation is decomposed into two relations EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT

EMPLOYEE table:

EMP_ID	EMP_NAME	EMP_AGE	EMP_CITY
22	Denim	28	Mumbai
33	Alina	25	Delhi
46	Stephan	30	Bangalore
52	Katherine	36	Mumbai
60	Jack	40	Noida

DEPARTMENT table

DEPT_ID	EMP_ID	DEPT_NAME
827	22	Sales
438	33	Marketing
869	46	Finance
575	52	Production
678	60	Testing

Now, when these two relations are joined on the common column "EMP_ID", then the resultant relation will look like:

Employee ⋈ Department

EMP_ID	EMP_NAME	EMP_AGE	EMP_CITY	DEPT_ID	DEPT_NAME
22	Denim	28	Mumbai	827	Sales
33	Alina	25	Delhi	438	Marketing
46	Stephan	30	Bangalore	869	Finance
52	Katherine	36	Mumbai	575	Production
60	Jack	40	Noida	678	Testing

Hence, the decomposition is Lossless join decomposition.

Dependency Preserving

• It is an important constraint of the database.
• In the dependency preservation, at least one decomposed table must satisfy every dependency.
• If a relation R is decomposed into relation R1 and R2, then the dependencies of R either must be a part of R1 or R2 or must be derivable from the combination of functional dependencies of R1 and R2.
• For example, suppose there is a relation R (A, B, C, D) with functional dependency set (A->BC). The relational R is decomposed into R1(ABC) and R2(AD) which is dependency preserving because FD A->BC is a part of relation R1(ABC).