Informix Guide to SQL: Tutorial

Informix Guide to SQL: Tutorial
Chapter 8: Building Your Data Model

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Summary

This chapter summarized and illustrated the following steps of E-R data modeling:

1. Identify and define your principal data objects, including the following options:

Entities
Relationships
Attributes

2. Diagram your data objects using the E-R diagram approach.

3. Translate your E-R data objects into relational constructs.

Determine the primary and foreign keys for each entity.

4. Resolve your relationships, particularly the following relationships:

1:1 relationships
m:n relationships
Other special relationships

5. Normalize your data model in one of the following forms:

First normal form
Second normal form
Third normal form

When the process is done right, you must examine every aspect of the data not once, but several times.

If you are interested in learning more about relational database design, you can attend the Informix course, Relational Database Design. This thorough course teaches you how to create an E-R data model.

If you are interested in pursuing more about database design on your own, Informix recommends the following excellent books:

Database Modeling and Design, The Entity-Relationship Approach by Toby J. Teorey (Morgan Kauffman Publishers, Inc., 1990)
Handbook of Relational Database Design by Candace C. Fleming and Barbara von Halle (Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1989)

Informix Guide to SQL: Tutorial, version 9.1
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