What are the potential pitfalls of storing data in a single column in a database and how can normalization help?

Storing data in a single column in a database can lead to data redundancy, inconsistency, and difficulty in querying and updating specific pieces of information. Normalization helps by breaking down the data into multiple tables, reducing redundancy, improving data integrity, and making it easier to query and update specific data points. 

// Example PHP code snippet for normalizing data in a database

// Create a new table for storing the normalized data
CREATE TABLE users (
    user_id INT PRIMARY KEY,
    username VARCHAR(50),
    email VARCHAR(50)
);

// Create another table for storing additional user information
CREATE TABLE user_details (
    user_id INT,
    full_name VARCHAR(100),
    age INT,
    FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES users(user_id)
);

// Query to retrieve user information using a JOIN statement
SELECT u.username, ud.full_name
FROM users u
JOIN user_details ud ON u.user_id = ud.user_id
WHERE u.user_id = 1;

Keywords

database design normalization data redundancy SQL queries data integrity

Related Questions