What do you understand by normalization in MySQL?

Normalization in MySQL is the process of organizing data into tables in such a way that the data is stored efficiently and redundancies are minimized. Normalization is an important concept in database design, as it helps to ensure data integrity and reduce data storage requirements.

For example, if a database contains information about customers and orders, the data can be normalized by creating separate tables for customers and orders. Each table would contain the relevant information about customers and orders, and the two tables could be linked together using a foreign key. This would ensure that the data is stored efficiently and redundancies are minimized.

What is the purpose of normalization in database design?

Normalization in database design is the process of organizing data into tables in such a way that the results of using the database are always unambiguous and as intended. It is a systematic approach of decomposing tables to eliminate data redundancy (repetition) and undesirable characteristics such as Insertion, Update and Deletion Anomalies.

For example, consider a table that stores both customer information and order information. If the data is not properly normalized, the customer information may be repeated in each row of the orders table. This could lead to data integrity issues, such as incorrect customer information being updated in one row but not the other. Normalization would break this table into two separate tables, one for customer information and one for order information, and create a relationship between them. This would ensure that customer information is only stored once and is consistent across all orders.