22.5. Normalization

Normalization refers to the process of restructuring tables to eliminate design problems. Normalizing your tables removes redundant data, makes it possible to access data more flexibly, and eliminates the possibility that inappropriate modifications will take place that make the data inconsistent. Normalization of a complex table often amounts to taking it through a process of decomposition into a set of smaller tables. This process removes repeating groups within rows and then duplicate data within columns.

Although you should understand that normalization is an important part of optimizing your databases to make queries perform efficiently, the normalization process is not covered here. See Section 38.2, "Normalization," for further discussion.