Mahmoud,

>Are these values atomical?

>My other question is what are the repercussions of 
>not putting a table in 2nd and 3rd Normal Form.

Your 'choice1-subchoice1' etc are combined values, so they aren't atomic. From your three example dropdown values, it looks as if 'choice' and 'subchoice' have a many-to-many relationship, and if that's so, you'll probably need a second table for 'subchoice' and a third table to store combinations of choice and subschoice.

There are examples of disadvantages of not putting a table in 2NF or 3NF at http://www.artfulsoftware.com/mysqlbook/sampler/mysqled1ch01.pdf, click on 'Normalisation and the normal forms', & read the sections on 1NF, 2NF and 3NF.

PB

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Mahmoud Badreddine wrote:

Hello,
I have two questions:
I would like to know whether I am violating the principle of atomicity in 
doing the following:

I have a form which has a field with the following options: Choice1, choice2 
and choice3.
Each of the above choices have two further subchoices : subChoice1, 
subchoice2.

so in my form I have a pull-down list and these are the choices I have:
choice1-subchoice1
choice1-subchoice2
choice2-subchoice1
....
....
and so on.

Are these values atomical?

My other question is what are the repercussions of not putting a table in 
2nd and 3rd Normal Form.
Thank you.


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