What you will learn in Grokking Relational Database Design
Chapter by chapter
Concepts explained in this book
- foreign keyA foreign key constraint requires values in a child table's foreign key column to correspond to valid primary key values in a parent table and restricts operations that would break that correspondence.
- primary keyA primary key constraint is an SQL constraint that requires primary-key values to be unique and non-NULL within a table.
- cardinalityCardinality is the number of instances of a target entity that can be associated with one instance of a source entity in a directional relationship.
- unique constraintA unique constraint is a database rule requiring every value, or every combined value across specified columns, to be distinct.
- surrogate keyA surrogate key is an artificially created key value used to uniquely identify a row independently of the row's natural attributes.
- join tableA junction table is a relational table that represents a many-to-many relationship by storing references to the participating entities.
- database designDatabase design is the process of defining a database's structures, relationships, constraints, and organization to meet data requirements.
- minimum cardinalityMinimum cardinality is the smallest number of related entity instances required or permitted for an entity instance in a relationship.
- one-to-many relationshipA many-to-one relationship is a relationship in which multiple instances on one side are associated with a single instance on the other side.
- entityA distinct real-world object or concept that can be described by attributes and represented by data.
- child tableA child table is the related table that contains a foreign key referencing a key in a parent table.
- Boyce-Codd normal formBoyce-Codd normal form is a relational normalization condition requiring every nontrivial functional dependency to have a superkey as its determinant.
- referential integrityThe property that references between related tables remain valid and consistent as rows are inserted, updated, or deleted.
- encryptionEncryption is the transformation of readable data into encoded information that cannot be understood without the appropriate decryption capability.
- char(n)CHAR is a fixed-length SQL character-string data type whose declared length determines its stored character width.
- plain textPlain text is data stored in a directly readable, unencoded form.
- candidate keyA minimal combination of table attributes whose values uniquely identify a row, with no removable attribute retaining that property.
- authorizationThe restriction of data or system operations according to the permissions granted to users or processes.
- interviewAn interview is a structured conversation for eliciting information from people about their work, requirements, or practices.
- confidentialityConfidentiality is the property that information is accessible and disclosed only to authorized people and processes.
- number typeNUMERIC is an SQL exact numeric data type that stores numbers with a declared precision and scale.
- AESAES is a symmetric block-cipher standard that encrypts data using key sizes of 128, 192, or 256 bits.
- Base64Base64 is an encoding standard that represents binary data as ASCII characters.
- cryptographic saltA cryptographic salt is a random value combined with password input before hashing to make precomputed hash attacks less effective.
- grant statementA GRANT statement assigns specified database privileges to a role or user.
- hash functionA hash function is a function that maps variable-length input data to a fixed-length output value.
- mandatory access controlMandatory access control is an access-control model in which a central authority assigns fixed classification-based permissions that users cannot override.
- one-way encryptionOne-way encryption transforms input data into a fixed-size representation designed to be computationally impractical to reverse.
- role-based access controlRole-based access control is an access-control model in which permissions are assigned to roles and users receive permissions through those roles.
- symmetric key encryptionSymmetric encryption is reversible encryption that uses the same secret key for encryption and decryption.
- superkeyA superkey is a set of one or more table columns whose values uniquely identify a row, possibly including unnecessary columns.
- full-text search indexA full-text index is a specialized database index that supports efficient searching within larger text values.
- subjectA subject is a person, place, thing, event, or other real-world item identified as relevant to a database design.
- entity-relationship diagramAn entity-relationship diagram is a visual model showing entities, their attributes, and the relationships between them, including relationship cardinalities.
- varchar data typeVARCHAR is a variable-length SQL character string data type that stores values up to a declared maximum length.
- functional dependencyA functional dependency is a constraint in which a value or set of values in one or more columns uniquely determines the value of another column.
- one-to-one relationshipA one-to-one relationship is a relationship in which each entity instance is associated with at most one instance of the other entity in both directions.
- not-null constraintA NOT NULL constraint requires a column to contain a non-NULL value.
- transitive dependencyA transitive dependency is a functional dependency in which a nonkey attribute depends on another nonkey attribute that depends on a key.
- optimizationOptimization is the process of improving database structures or operations to increase efficiency and responsiveness.
- denormalizationDenormalization is the deliberate introduction of controlled redundancy or less-normalized database structures to improve performance or meet operational needs.
- timestampA TIMESTAMP data type records a date and time representing an exact event moment, typically with automatic time-zone conversion by the database system.
- dependent entityAn entity whose identification depends on a related owner entity and typically cannot be uniquely identified by its own attributes alone.
- character encodingA character set is a defined mapping and storage scheme for representing characters and symbols in a database.
- columnA column is a named field in a relational table whose values share a defined meaning and data type.
- DecimalA DECIMAL data type is an SQL fixed-point numeric type whose precision and scale control the represented number of digits.
- parent tableA parent table is the related table whose shared key is referenced by a foreign key in another table.
- third normal formThird normal form is a relational design level in which the table is in second normal form and non-key attributes do not depend transitively on a key.
- strong entityA strong entity is an entity that can exist independently and be uniquely identified without another entity.
- ChatGPTChatGPT is a conversational generative artificial intelligence service that produces responses to user prompts.
- recordA table record containing values for the columns of one represented entity or relationship.
- data integrityData integrity is the property that data remains accurate, complete, valid, trustworthy, and protected from unintended alteration or loss.
- constraintA database constraint is a rule that restricts permitted data values or database states to preserve validity, consistency, and integrity.
- where clauseA WHERE clause is an SQL clause that restricts query results to rows satisfying a predicate.
- data typeAn SQL data type specifies the kind of values that a database column can store and the operations supported for those values.
- delete anomalyA deletion anomaly is an undesirable data-maintenance problem in which removing one fact unintentionally removes another fact that was stored with it.
- maximum cardinalityMaximum cardinality is the largest number of target-entity instances with which one source-entity instance can be associated.
- selectA SELECT statement is a SQL query construct that specifies data to retrieve and expressions to evaluate.
- normalizationNormalization is the process of organizing relational data into separate tables to reduce redundancy and prevent update anomalies.
- naming standardA naming convention is a consistent set of rules for naming database objects and their components.
- Crow's Foot notationCrow's Foot notation is an entity-relationship diagram convention that uses crow's-foot symbols to represent relationship cardinality and participation.
- update anomalyAn unintended inconsistency caused by updating duplicated data in one table while failing to update the corresponding data in another table.
- keyword queryKeyword searching is a query technique that finds records containing specified words or terms in text.
- CREATE TABLE statementCREATE TABLE is an SQL statement that defines a new relational table and its columns and constraints.
- cascading deleteCASCADE is a referential action that automatically propagates parent-row deletions or key updates to corresponding child rows.
- timeA TIME data type stores a time of day without calendar-date information.
- unsigned integerAn unsigned integer is a nonnegative integer representation without a negative sign.
- arbitrary-precision integerBIGINT is a SQL integer data type designed to represent very large whole-number values.
- smallintSMALLINT is a small SQL integer data type with an implementation-defined fixed storage size and numeric range.
- TINYINTTINYINT is a small SQL integer data type with an implementation-defined fixed storage size and numeric range.
- nonaggregate attributeA nonaggregate attribute is a selected column or expression that is not computed by an aggregate function.
- snake caseA naming style that separates words with underscores, typically using lowercase letters.
- B-treeA B-tree is a self-balancing tree data structure that maintains sorted data and supports search, sequential access, insertion, and deletion in logarithmic time.
- order by clauseAn ORDER BY clause specifies the ordering applied to rows returned by an SQL query.
- standard indexA standard index is a database index that accelerates operations such as sorting and exact-value matching.
- default valueA DEFAULT constraint supplies a specified value for a column when an inserted row omits that column.
- insertion anomalyAn insertion anomaly is an undesirable data-maintenance problem in which a record cannot be added without also supplying unrelated or duplicated information.
- from clauseA FROM clause specifies the table or tables that provide the source rows for an SQL query.
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