Lectuer-2

Database Design and

Applications
BITS Pilani Ashish Narang
Pilani Campus
 BITS Pilani
Pilani Campus

First Semester

2020-21
Contents

1. Steps in Database Design Process

2. ER Concepts (Entities, Attributes, Associations etc.)

3. ER Notations

4. Class Hierarchies

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Major Steps in Database
Design Process
• Requirement Analysis
 Understanding the domain
 Identifying the data to be stored
 Identifying the constraints
• Conceptual Database design
 E-R modeling
• Logical Database Design
 Designing tables and relationships
• Refinement of schema
• Physical database design
 Indexing
 Storage formats

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ER Model
• An E-R model is a detailed logical representation of the data for
an organization or for a business area. An ER model normally is
expressed as an Entity-Relationship diagram (ER diagram),
which is a graphical representation of an ER model.

• The basic components of an ER model are

 Entities

 Relationships

 Attributes

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Entity
• Entity is an object in the real world that is distinguishable from
all other objects.

• Entity has independent existence.

• For Example, a particular person, car, house or employee.

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Attributes
• Attributes are properties or characteristics possessed by an
entity.

• For example, Employee entity may be described by the

attributes Employee name, Age, Address, Salary and Job etc.

• A Particular entity will have value for each of its attributes.

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Attributes Types
Several types of attributes occur in E-R Model
• Simple

• Composite

• Single valued

• Multi-valued

• Derived

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Simple and Composite Attributes
• A simple attribute can not be divided into subparts.

• Simple attribute are also called atomic.

• A composite attribute can be subdivided into subparts which

represents more basic attributes with independent meaning.

• For Example, Address attribute of Employee Entity can be

divided into street_address, city, state and zip.

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Single valued and Multi-valued
Attributes
• A single-valued attribute is the one will have only one value
for a given entity instance.
– For Example, Age is a single valued attribute

• A multi-valued attribute is the one which will have more than

one value for a given entity instance.
– For Example, Color attribute of a car

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Derived Attributes
• A derived attribute is the one which is derived or calculated
from other related attributes.
• In Some cases, two attribute values are related.
For Example, Age and Birth_date attributes of a person.
• For a particular person entity, the value of age can be
determined from the current date and the value of that persons
birth date.
• Birth date is called as stored attribute.

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Entity Types and Entity Sets
• An Entity type defines a collection of entities that have same
attributes. Each entity type in the database is described by its
name and attributes.

• The Collection of all the entities of a particular entity type in

the database at any point in time is called an entity set.

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Contd..

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Value Sets of Attributes
• Each simple attribute of an entity type is associated with a
value set, which specifies the set of values that may be
assigned to that attribute for each individual entity.

• For example, if the range of ages allowed for employees is

between 16 and 70, we can specify the value set of Age
attribute of Employee to be set of integer numbers between 16
and 70.

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Weak Entity
• An entity whose existence depends on some other entity.

• The entity on which the weak entity depends is called the

identifying owner (or simply owner).

• A weak entity does not have its own identifier.

• Generally in an ER diagram a weak entity has an attribute that

serves as a partial identifier.

• The relationship between a weak entity and its owner is called

an identifying relationship.

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Relationships
• A relationship represents an association between two or more
entities. An example of a relationship would be
– Employees are assigned to projects

– Department manage one or more projects

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Notations Used in ER diagrams

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Contd..

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Contd..

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Degree of a Relationship
• The degree of a relationship is the number of entities
associated with the relationship.
 Unary Relationship

 Binary Relationship

 Ternary Relationship

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Cardinality of Relationship
• The cardinality ratio for a binary relationship specifies the
maximum number of relationship instances that an entity can
participate in.
 One to One

 One to Many

 Many to Many

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Participation Constraint
• The participation constraint specifies whether the existence of
one entity depends on its being related to another entity via
relationship type.

• There are two types of participants constraints

 Total
 Partial

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A Sample Database

• The COMPANY database keeps track of a company’s employees,

departments, and projects. Suppose that after the requirements
collection and analysis phase, the database designers provide the
following description of the miniworld—the part of the company
that will be represented in the database.
• The company is organized into departments. Each department has a
unique name, a unique number, and a particular employee who
manages the department. We keep track of the start date when that
employee began managing the department. A department may have
several locations.

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Contd..

• A department controls a number of projects, each of which has a

unique name, a unique number, and a single location.
• We store each employee’s name, Social Security number, address,
salary, gender, and birth date. An employee is assigned to one
department, but may work on several projects, which are not
necessarily controlled by the same department. We keep track of the
number of hours per week that an employee works on each project.
We also keep track of the direct supervisor of each employee (who
is another employee).

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Contd..

• We want to keep track of the dependents of each employee for

insurance purposes. We keep each dependent’s first name, gender,
birth date, and relationship to the employee.

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Identify the Entities

1. Employee

2. Department

3. Project

4. Dependent

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Contd..

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Relationships

1. Employee manages Department

2. Employee works for Department

3. Department controls project

4. Employee supervises Employee

5. Employee works on projects

6. Employee has Dependents

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Contd..

N 1

M N

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Contd..

1 1

1 N

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Contd..

1 N

Supervisee Supervisor

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ER Diagram of Company
Database

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University Management System

Consider a university with many departments. Each department has

unique D.no, D_name and location. A department can offer any
number of courses. Several professors work for a department. Each
Professor is given a unique code, name and contact number. Each
professor works for one department. Each department has one
professor as head. A Professor can head only one department and
can teach 2 to 4 courses. A student can enroll for any number of
courses. A course can be taught by multiple professors. Each course
has some credits associated with it and can have any number of
students. Each student has unique Rollno, Name and Address.

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Identify the Entities

The different entities are

1. Department

2. Course

3. Professor

4. Student

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Identify key Attributes

Following are the primary key attributes for each entity

• Dno(Department number) key attribute of Department

• C_code(Course Code) key attribute of Course

• Roll_no(Roll number) key attribute of Student

• P_code(Professor code) key attribute of Teacher

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Identify other Relevant Attributes

• Department entity will have

• dname
• loc
• Course entity will have
• c_name
• credits
• Professor will have
• Name
• mob_no
• Student entity will have
• Name
• address

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Identify Relationships

• Department Offers Courses

• Department has Professors

• Student Enroll for Courses

• Professors teach Courses

• Professor heads Department

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Draw E-R Diagram

Dname loc C_code C_name

Dno credits

1 N
Department Offers Course

1 N
1 N

Teaches Enroll
has heads

1 M
N M
Professor Student

P_code name mob_no Roll_no Name Address

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Class Hierarchies

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Disjointness

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Overlapping

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