Database Design

Summary

In this chapter, we took a brief look at database design, from capturing requirements, through generating a conceptual design, and finally converting the conceptual design into a physical database design or schema. Along the way, we covered selecting candidate keys, primary keys, and foreign keys. We also looked at choosing data types for our columns, and talked about the importance of consistency in database design.

We briefly mentioned normal forms, an important foundation of good design with relational databases. Finally, we looked at three common problem patterns that appear in database design, and how they are conventionally solved.

In the next chapter, we will begin to look at ways to build client applications using PostgreSQL, starting with the libpq library, which allows access to PostgreSQL from C.