ISM4212 – Assignment 1
Javier Fernandez 01/16/2024
Directions: Given the file structure shown in Figure P1.1, answer Problems 1 - 4. Refer to
Module 1 in the course for directions on submitting the completed file. Point values are listed
after each problem. Assignment total points = 40
.
FIGURE P1.1 The File Structure for Problems 1-4
1.
How many records does the file contain? How many fields are there per record? (8pts)
A: There are 7 records in this file and 6 fields per record.
2.
What problem would you encounter if you wanted to produce a listing by city? How would
you solve this problem by altering the file structure? (10pts)
A: The problem of wanting to produce a listing by city is the lack of individualized fields that
narrow down the listing’s by city. By altering the fields by separating the MANAGER_ADDRESS into mutiple other fields like
MANAGER_ADDRESS, MANAGER_CITY, MANAGER_STATE, etc. Only then will I, in
the file structure, be able to produce a listing single out the MANAGER_CITY field.
3.
If you wanted to produce a listing of the file contents by last name, area code, city, state, or
zip code, how would you alter the file structure? (10pts)
A: As I similarly explained in question 2, altering the file structure of the data is as follows:
decomposing the MANAGER_ADDRESS and PROJECT_MANAGER field into smaller
and more specific fields that are PROJECT_FIRST, PROJECT_LAST and
MANAGER_AREA,CITY,STATE,ZIP. That’s how the file structure should be altered to
produce the listings by those fields, updated ones.
4.
What data redundancies do you detect? How could those redundancies lead to anomalies?
(12pts)
A: In PROJECT_MANAGER, Holly B. Parker and George F. Dorts are in this field 2-3 times
each. Same with their phone numbers and addresses. These redundancies lead to damaging
consequences and anomalies. For example, in PROJECT_BID_PRICE the aforementioned
project managers’ bids are different across their varios project codes and this is fine. But to
keep things updated and without clutter there should be another field that simply has you
enter in progress or completed for each project. When a project manager has completed their
project, they enter that data into that new field which then updates the file structure and
moves their completed project to an archive file structure for records.
