What is Partial Dependency?

Key Terms

Database: Let’s imagine a compact library with books on various classics. A database is just like a file drawer with files electronically stored with structured data about a certain subject in a computer course, like students, courses, or inventory. It facilitates such filtering, sorting, and analysis processes....

What is Partial Dependency?

Partial dependency in a relational database occurs when a non-prime attribute (i.e., not part of any candidate key) is functionally dependent on only a part of the primary key, rather than the entire primary key....

Example

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How is Partial Dependency Identified?

In this case, we can state that the partial dependency can be observed if we run the test of functional dependencies between attributes of a table. Functional dependencies describe how one or several attributes depend on another attribute, which could be in the same table or in another table. The object is the attribute; the attribute is partially dependent based on only part of the primary key....

How to Minimize Partial Dependency?

Preventing this kind of shallow bias can be accomplished by integrating a non-linear function, a multi-layer perceptron, or regularization techniques....

Example to Minimize Partial Dependency

Original Table (CourseEnrollment):...

Conclusion

The partial dependent value is one of the many problems experienced in the design of a database, of which data inconsistency, data anomalies, and poor performance are common. Frequently, it takes place when the non-key column only partially depends on the primary key. Functions of dependency can be determined by examining the function dependencies between all attributes of a table, and they can be reduced by normalizing the tables to delete excess content and preserve data consistency. Normalization is indeed a key idea that affects database management systems’s structure optimization as well as providing the database with better performance....

Frequently Asked Questions on Partial Dependency – FAQs

What is the difference between partial and transitive dependency?...