Consider the STUDENT (SSN, FirstName, MiddleInitial, LastName, Address, phoneNum

Question

Consider the STUDENT (SSN, FirstName, MiddleInitial, LastName, Address, phoneNumber) relation:

a) What in your own words are the arguments in favor of keeping the FirstName, MiddleInitial, LastName as separate attributes, rather than calling them as a single attribute called Name?

b) In your own words, if a student has three different phone numbers that we wish to store, such as a HomePhone, CellPhone and OfficePhone (in case of students who have an office), does a single attribute called Phone# suffice? Why or why not? Propose how you would accommodate this situation using either one or two relations.

Explanation / Answer

a) by keeping the FirstName, MiddleInitial, LastName as separate attributes, rather than calling them as a single attribute called Name we can find a student with perticular name or by perticular first or last name easily without using complex string operations.

b) a single attribute called Phone won't be a good option.. phone is a multivalued attribute for it it is best to make another table with schema

phone_number, type, student_ssn

where ssn is foreign key

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