Question Discussion & Solution

🔑 Key Points

• For a table to be in Second Normal Form (2NF), it must first satisfy the conditions of First Normal Form (1NF).
• Additionally, every non-prime attribute (an attribute that is not part of any candidate key) must be fully functionally dependent on every candidate key of the relation.
• This specifically means there should be no partial dependencies, where a non-prime attribute depends only on a proper subset of a candidate key.
• If a non-prime attribute depends only on a part of a composite candidate key, it violates 2NF.

📄 Additional Information

• A candidate key is a minimal set of attributes that can uniquely identify a row in a table.
• To move from 1NF to 2NF, tables with partial dependencies are decomposed, separating the attributes that are only partially dependent on the key.
• This step is crucial for reducing redundancy and preventing update, insertion, and deletion anomalies related to partial dependencies.