Concepts of Database Management
Concepts of Database Management
9th Edition
ISBN: 9781337093422
Author: Joy L. Starks, Philip J. Pratt, Mary Z. Last
Publisher: Cengage Learning
Question
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Chapter 1, Problem 1RQ
To determine

Definition of redundancy and problems that can occur due to redundancy.

Expert Solution & Answer
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Explanation of Solution

Redundancy refers to repeated occurrence of same data values at multiple places. For example, consider the student table below:

StudentID StudentName Age Address Subjects Marks
101 John Arry 27 Park Street Physics 80
101 John Arry 27 Park Street Chemistry 70
101 John Arry 27 Park Street Mathematics 100
104 Paul Smith 28 Avenue Street Chemistry 85
104 Paul Smith 28 Avenue Street Physics 90
106 Massie Williams 26 Mathematics 56

The above table consists of redundant data for columns StudentName, StudentID, Age and Address.

This redundancy can result in many problems. Redundancy can result in inconsistencies in data and result in misleading information which can later affect the decision making.

Also, due to redundancy, it becomes very hard to make correction or updation in data. For example, considering the above table, suppose in case the student name for studentID 101 was misread and entered incorrectly. Now, in order to update the correct name it will be time consuming and a cumbersome process since correction needs to be performed at multiple places.

Redundancy also results in eating up extra storage spaces and causes storage files to become heavy. Due to which it becomes time consuming to transfer files or retrieve information from it. Thus, it results in an inefficient system performance.

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