Scribd
Upload
22 views2 pages

ER Diagram Representation

Entities are represented by rectangles with their names. Attributes are represented by ellipses connected to entities. Composite attributes have a tree structure. Multivalued attributes use double ellipses. Relationships are diamonds connecting participating entities. Cardinality shows the number of instances in a relationship and can be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, or many-to-many.

Uploaded by

Rome Empe Bal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
22 views2 pages

ER Diagram Representation

Entities are represented by rectangles with their names. Attributes are represented by ellipses connected to entities. Composite attributes have a tree structure. Multivalued attributes use double ellipses. Relationships are diamonds connecting participating entities. Cardinality shows the number of instances in a relationship and can be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, or many-to-many.

Uploaded by

Rome Empe Bal
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 2

ER Diagram Representation

Entity
Entities are represented by means of rectangles. Rectangles are named with the entity set they
represent.

Attributes
Attributes are the properties of entities. Attributes are
represented by means of ellipses. Every ellipse
represents one attribute and is directly connected to its
entity (rectangle).

If the attributes are composite, they are further divided


in a tree like structure. Every node is then connected to
its attribute. That is, composite attributes are
represented by ellipses that are connected with an
ellipse.

Multivalued attributes are depicted by double ellipse.

Derived attributes are depicted by dashed ellipse.


Relationship
Relationships are represented by diamond-shaped box. Name of the relationship is written inside the
diamond-box. All the entities (rectangles) participating in a relationship, are connected to it by a line.

Binary Relationship and Cardinality


A relationship where two entities are participating is called a binary relationship. Cardinality is the
number of instance of an entity from a relation that can be associated with the relation.

 One-to-one − When only one instance of an entity


is associated with the relationship, it is marked as '1:1'.
The following image reflects that only one instance of each
entity should be associated with the relationship. It depicts
one-to-one relationship.

 One-to-many − When more than one


instance of an entity is associated with a
relationship, it is marked as '1:N'. The following
image reflects that only one instance of entity on the
left and more than one instance of an entity on the right can be associated with the relationship.
It depicts one-to-many relationship.

 Many-to-one − When more than one


instance of entity is associated with the
relationship, it is marked as 'N:1'. The following
image reflects that more than one instance of an
entity on the left and only one instance of an entity on the right can be associated with the
relationship. It depicts many-to-one relationship.

 Many-to-many − The following image


reflects that more than one instance of an entity
on the left and more than one instance of an
entity on the right can be associated with the
relationship. It depicts many-to-many relationship.

You might also like