L05 - Entity-Relationship

(ER) model
Database Design Using the E-R Model
Design Phases
• Initial phase -- characterize fully the data needs of the
prospective database users.
• Second phase -- choosing a data model
• Applying the concepts of the chosen data model
• Translating these requirements into a conceptual schema
of the database.
• A fully developed conceptual schema indicates the
functional requirements of the enterprise.
• Describe the kinds of operations (or transactions) that will
be performed on the data.

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Design Phases
▪ Final Phase -- Moving from an abstract data model to the
implementation of the database
• Logical Design – Deciding on the database schema.
• Database design requires that we find a “good” collection of
relation schemas.
▪ Business decision – What attributes should we record in the
database?
▪ Computer Science decision – What relation schemas should we
have and how should the attributes be distributed among the
various relation schemas?
• Physical Design – Deciding on the physical layout of the database

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Design Alternatives
▪ In designing a database schema, we must ensure that we avoid two
major pitfalls:
• Redundancy: a bad design may result in repeat information.
▪ Redundant representation of information may lead to data
inconsistency among the various copies of information

• Incompleteness: a bad design may make certain aspects of the

enterprise difficult or impossible to model.

▪ Avoiding bad designs is not enough. There may be a large number of

good designs from which we must choose.

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Design Approaches
▪ Entity Relationship Model
• Models an enterprise as a collection of entities and
relationships
▪ Entity: a “thing” or “object” in the enterprise that is
distinguishable from other objects
• Described by a set of attributes
▪ Relationship: an association among several entities
• Represented diagrammatically by an entity-relationship
diagram:
▪ Normalization Theory
• Formalize what designs are bad, and test for them
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ER model - Database Modeling
• The ER data mode was developed to facilitate database design
by allowing specification of an enterprise schema that
represents the overall logical structure of a database.
• The ER data model employs three basic concepts:
• entity sets,
• relationship sets,
• attributes.
• The ER model also has an associated diagrammatic
representation, the ER diagram, which can express the overall
logical structure of a database graphically.
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Entity Sets
• An entity is an object that exists and is distinguishable from other objects.
• Example: specific person, company, event, plant
• An entity set is a set of entities of the same type that share the same
properties.
• Example: set of all persons, companies, trees, holidays
• An entity is represented by a set of attributes; i.e., descriptive properties
possessed by all members of an entity set.
• Example:
instructor = (ID, name, salary )
course= (course_id, title, credits)
• A subset of the attributes form a primary key of the entity set; i.e., uniquely
identifying each member of the set.

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Entity Sets - instructor and student

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Representing Entity sets in ER Diagram
▪ Entity sets can be represented graphically as
follows:
• Rectangles represent entity sets.
• Attributes listed inside entity rectangle
• Underline indicates primary key attributes

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Relationship Sets
• A relationship is an association among several entities
Example:
44553 (Peltier) advisor 22222 (Einstein)
student entityrelationship set instructor entity
• A relationship set is a mathematical relation among n  2
entities, each taken from entity sets
{(e1, e2, … en) | e1  E1, e2  E2, …, en  En}

where (e1, e2, …, en) is a relationship

• Example:
(44553,22222)  advisor
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Relationship Sets
▪ Example: we define the relationship set advisor to denote the
associations between students and the instructors who act as their
advisors.
▪ Pictorially, we draw a line between related entities.

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Representing Relationship Sets via ER Diagrams
• Diamonds represent relationship sets.

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Relationship Sets with Attributes

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Roles
• Entity sets of a relationship need not be distinct
• Each occurrence of an entity set plays a “role” in the relationship
• The labels “course_id” and “prereq_id” are called roles.

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Degree of a Relationship Set
• Binary relationship
• involve two entity sets (or degree two).
• most relationship sets in a database system are
binary.
• Relationships between more than two entity sets are
rare. Most relationships are binary. (More on this later.)
• Example: students work on research projects under
the guidance of an instructor.
• relationship proj_guide is a ternary relationship
between instructor, student, and project
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Non-binary Relationship Sets
• Most relationship sets are binary
• There are occasions when it is more convenient to represent
relationships as non-binary.
• E-R Diagram with a Ternary Relationship

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Complex Attributes
• Attribute types:
• Simple and composite attributes.
• Single-valued and multivalued attributes
• Example: multivalued attribute: phone_numbers
• Derived attributes
• Can be computed from other attributes
• Example: age, given date_of_birth
• Domain – the set of permitted values for each attribute

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Composite Attributes
Composite attributes allow us to divided attributes into subparts (other attributes).

composite name address

attributes

first_name middle_initial last_name street city state postal_code

component
attributes
street_number street_name apartment_number

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Representing Complex Attributes in ER Diagram

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Mapping Cardinality Constraints
• Express the number of entities to which another entity
can be associated via a relationship set.
• Most useful in describing binary relationship sets.
• For a binary relationship set the mapping cardinality
must be one of the following types:
• One to one
• One to many
• Many to one
• Many to many
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Mapping Cardinalities

One to one One to many

Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any elements in the other set

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Mapping Cardinalities

Many to one Many to many

Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any elements in the other set

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Representing Cardinality Constraints in ER Diagram
• We express cardinality constraints by drawing either a directed line (→), signifying “one,” or an
undirected line (—), signifying “many,” between the relationship set and the entity set.

• One-to-one relationship between an instructor and a student :

• A student is associated with at most one instructor via the relationship advisor
• A student is associated with at most one department via stud_dept

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One-to-Many Relationship
• one-to-many relationship between an instructor and a student
• an instructor is associated with several (including 0) students
via advisor
• a student is associated with at most one instructor via advisor

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Many-to-One Relationships
• In a many-to-one relationship between an instructor and a student,
• an instructor is associated with at most one student via advisor,
• and a student is associated with several (including 0) instructors via
advisor

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Many-to-Many Relationship
• An instructor is associated with several (possibly 0) students via advisor
• A student is associated with several (possibly 0) instructors via advisor

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