Gain insights into fundamental database concepts, relational databases, and entity-relationship diagrams. Learn about normalization techniques and basics of SQL to enhance database efficiency.

Databases are universal - they underlie the technology you use every day. They're a crucial component of everything from telecommunications systems, banking systems, and video games to just about any other software system that maintains some amount of persistent data.

In this course, you'll learn about the fundamental concepts of databases, why and when they're used, what relational databases are, and entity-relationship diagrams. You will also be exposed to techniques like normalization that help to increase the efficiency of databases. You'll wrap up with a look at the basics of Structured Query Language (SQL). 

After completing this course, you will be able to move onto more advanced courses involving database systems and SQL.

Database Design Fundamentals for Software Engineers

# Second normal form (2NF)

To be in second normal form, a relation must be in first normal form (1NF) and it must not contain any [partial dependencies](https://www.educative.io/courses/database-design-fundamentals/rules-of-functional-dependencies). So a relation is in 2NF as long as it has no partial dependencies, i.e., no non-prime attributes (attributes which are not part of any candidate key) is dependent on any proper subset of a composite primary key of the table.

## Example

**STUDENT Relation**

| Stud_Id    |  Course_Id   | Course_Fee    |
| --- | --- | --- |
|  1   |  C1   |  1000   |
|  2   |  C2   |  1500   |
|  1   |  C4   |  2000   |
|  4   |  C3   |  1000   |
|  4   |  C1   |  1000   |
|  2   |  C5   |  3000   |

We can determine a few things by looking at the table above. First of all, `Course_Fee` alone cannot be used to identify each tuple uniquely. Furthermore, the combination of `Course_Fee` together with `Stud_Id` or `Course_Id` also cannot be used to uniquely identify each tuple.
Hence, `Course_Fee` would be a non-prime attribute, as it does not belong to the composite primary key {`Stud_Id`, `Course_Id`}.

However, from the table, it is evident that `Course_Id` $\rightarrow$ `Course_Fee` , i.e., `Course_fee` is dependent on `Course_Id` only, which is a proper subset of the primary key. This results in a partial dependency and so this relation is not in 2NF.

To convert the above relation to 2NF, we need to split the table into two other tables such as:

* Table 1: `Stud_Id`, `Course_Id`

* Table 2: `Course_Id`, `Course_Fee`


In this lesson, we will discuss how to decompose a table into second normal form and see some examples.

Introduction

Fundamental Concepts

Data Modeling

Entity-Relationship Data Model

The Relational Data Model

Functional Dependencies

Normalization

Structured Query Language

Conclusion

Second Normal Form

Second normal form (2NF)