Hello all,

I'm new to database design & development. I have a project to develop an ERD for a Veterinary Hospital and then normalise the resulting tables. The question actually goes this way:

"Task 1: Draw an ERD that describes the content and structure of the data held by the Hospital.

Task 2: Produce the resulting normalised tables clearly indicating the primary and foreign keys."

My problem: After drawing up the ERD, each entity becomes a table. Right? For One to many relationships, the primary key is placed as a foreign key in the many side of the relationship...For one-to-one relationships, the tables from the two entities are combined. Right? Now how do i normalise the tables (i know the process) without a data set? When i try creating a data set using the tables, it all looks already normalised. I'm really confused!

any answers, please?

dude, you waited twenty minutes and then bumped your thread?

very poor etiquette

at a minimum, wait 24 hours, and then don't bump

fake the process, after all this sort of assignment is more about the road to the final design not neccessarily the final design itself

ferisntance you could start with customers
and list what you know
eg their name, address, contact numbers, the type, name of pet, detailss of a treatement,, who treated them and so on and what with... y'get the picture
consider adding several rows for different treatments eg 01/jan exam, 02/jan op, 05/jan returned to owner
consider adding other names (eg childrens names)
then break down that (row / spreadsheet type) data into tables removing repeating groups into other entities till you have your requiste physical design
then load up your tables with the relevant bits of the original row / spreadsheet data so your assessor can see the progress

Thanks healdem.

Does that mean i should normalise before drawing the ERD? The question says draw the ERD and then normalise....Should i send the background information? Please pardon me, i'm sort of a slow learner.

no it means you should do your own coursework
basic questions such as this should be aimed at either your peers doing the same course or the academic staff teaching this course.
the clue is in the statement
no
you should at least make an effort to complete the assignment, and effort I don't means spend a few minutes sketching out an ERD. make an effort to do the work, by all means come back if you are truly stuck, but otherwise do the process. you will learn more form doing it (and going down a few blind allies) than getting others to push you in the right direction. a good source of basic help are you peers, those studying the same course as you, doing the same coursework as you.

Ok. Thanks.