UNIT II

Entity-Relationship Model: Introduction, The Building blocks of an Entity Relationship

Diagram, classification of entity sets, attribute classification, relationship degree, relationship
classification, reducing ER diagram to tables, enhanced entity-relationship model (EER
model), generalization and specialization, ISA relationship and attribute inheritance, multiple
inheritance, constraints on specialization and generalization, aggregation and composition,
entity clusters, connection traps, advantages of ER modelling.

2.1 Introduction:

Peter Chen first proposed modelling databases using a graphical technique that
humans can relate to easily. Humans can easily perceive entities and their characteristics
in the real world and represent any relationship with one another. Entity–Relationship
(ER) model gives the conceptual model of the world to be represented in the database.
The main motivation for defining the ER model is to provide a high level model for
conceptual database design, which acts as an intermediate stage prior to mapping the
enterprise being modelled onto a conceptual level.
The ER model achieves a high degree of data independence which means that the
database designer do not have to worry about the physical structure of the database. A
database schema in ER model can be pictorially represented by Entity–Relationship
diagram.

2.2 The Building Blocks of an Entity–Relationship Diagram

The basic building blocks of Entity- Relationship diagram are Entity, Attribute and
Relationship.
Entity
An entity can be a real-world object, either animate or inanimate, that can be easily
identifiable. For example, in a school database, students, teachers, classes, and courses
offered can be considered as entities.
Entity Type
An entity type or entity set is a collection of similar entities. Some examples of entity
types are:
– All students in PSG, say STUDENT.
– All courses in PSG, say COURSE.
– All departments in PSG, say DEPARTMENT.
Relationship
The association among entities is called a relationship. For example, an
employee works_at a department, a student enrolls in a course. Here, Works_at and
Enrolls are called relationships.
Attributes
Attributes are properties of entity types. In other words, entities are described in a
database by a set of attributes. The following are example of attributes:
– Brand, cost, and weight are the attributes of CELLPHONE.
– Roll number, name, and grade are the attributes of STUDENT.
ER Diagram
The ER diagram is used to represent database schema. In ER diagram:
– A rectangle represents an entity set.
– An ellipse represents an attribute.
– A diamond represents a relationship.

1
 – Lines represent linking of attributes to entity sets and of entity sets to
relationship sets.

Example of ER diagram
In the ER diagram the two entities are STUDENT and CLASS. Two simple attributes
which are associated with the STUDENT are Roll number and the name. The attributes
associated with the entity CLASS are Subject Name and Hall Number. The relationship
between the two entities STUDENT and CLASS is Attends.

2.3 Classification of Entity Sets

Entity sets can be broadly classified into:
1. Strong entity.
2. Weak entity.
3. Associative entity.

Strong Entity
Strong entity is one whose existence does not depend on other entity.

Example
Consider the example, student takes course. Here student is a strong entity.

2
In this example, course is considered as weak entity because, if there are no students to
take a particular course, then that course cannot be offered. The COURSE entity depends
on the STUDENT entity.
Weak Entity
Weak entity is one whose existence depends on other entity.

Example
Consider the example, customer borrows loan. Here loan is a weak entity. For every
loan, there should be at least one customer. Here the entity loan depends on the entity
customer hence loan is a weak entity.

2.4 Attribute Classification

Attribute is used to describe the properties of the entity. This attribute can be broadly
classified based on value and structure. Based on value the attribute can be classified
into single value, multivalue, derived, and null value attribute. Based on structure, the
attribute can be classified as simple and composite attribute.

Symbols Used in ER Diagram

The elements in ER diagram are Entity, Attribute, and Relationship. The different types
of entities like strong, weak, and associative entity, different types of attributes like
multivalued and derived attributes and identifying relationship and their corresponding
symbols are shown later.

3
Single Value Attribute
Single value attribute means, there is only one value associated with that attribute.
Example
The examples of single value attribute are age of a person, Roll number of the student,
Registration number of a car, etc.
Multivalued Attribute
In the case of multivalue attribute, more than one value will be associated with that
attribute. For example, a person can have more than one phone number, email_address,
etc.
Examples of Multivalued Attribute

Derived Attribute
Derived attributes are the attributes that do not exist in the physical database, but their
values are derived from other attributes present in the database. For example,
average_salary in a department should not be saved directly in the database, instead it
can be derived. For another example, age can be derived from data_of_birth.
Example of Derived Attribute

Null Value Attribute

In some cases, a particular entity may not have any applicable value for an attribute. For
such situation, a special value called null value is created.

4
Example
In application forms, there is one column called phone no. if a person do not have phone
then a null value is entered in that column.

Simple attribute − Simple attributes are atomic values, which cannot be divided
further. For example, a student's phone number is an atomic value of 10 digits

Composite attribute − Composite attributes are made of more than one simple ttribute.
For example, a student's complete name may have first_name and last_name.

Consider the attribute “address” which can be further subdivided into Street name, City,
and State.

2.5 Relationship Degree

Relationship degree refers to the number of associated entities. The relationship degree
can be broadly classified into unary, binary, and ternary relationship.
2.5.1 Unary Relationship
The unary relationship is otherwise known as recursive relationship. In the unary
relationship the number of associated entity is one. An entity related to itself is known as
recursive relationship.

Roles and Recursive Relation

When an entity sets appear in more than one relationship, it is useful to add labels to
connecting lines. These labels are called as roles.
Example
In this example, Husband and wife are referred as roles.

5
2.5.2 Binary Relationship
In a binary relationship, two entities are involved. Consider the example; each staff will
be assigned to a particular department. Here the two entities are STAFF and
DEPARTMENT.

2.5.3 Ternary Relationship

In a ternary relationship, three entities are simultaneously involved. Ternary
relationships are required when binary relationships are not sufficient to accurately
describe the semantics of an association among three entities.
Example
Consider the example of employee assigned a project. Here we are considering three
entities EMPLOYEE, PROJECT, and LOCATION. The relationship is “assigned-to.” Many
employees will be assigned to one project hence it is an example of one-to-many
relationship.

2.5.4 Quaternary Relationships

Quaternary relationships involve four entities. The example of quaternary relationship is
“ A professor teaches a course to students using slides. ” Here the four entities are
PROFESSOR, SLIDES, COURSE, and STUDENT. The relationships between the entities
are “Teaches.”

2.6 Relationship Classification

Relationship is an association among one or more entities. This relationship can be
broadly classified into one-to-one relation, one-to-many relation, many-to- many
relation and recursive relation.
2.6.1 One-to-Many Relationship Type

6
The relationship that associates one entity to more than one entity is called one-to-many
relationship. Example of one-to-many relationship is Country having states. For one
country there can be more than one state hence it is an example of one-to-many
relationship. Another example of one-to-many relationship is parent–child relationship.
For one parent there can be more than one child. Hence it is an example of one-to-many
relationship.
2.6.2 One-to-One Relationship Type
One-to-one relationship is a special case of one-to-many relationship. True one-to-one
relationship is rare. The relationship between the President and the country is an
example of one-to-one relationship. For a particular country there will be only one
President. In general, a country will not have more than one President hence the
relationship between the country and the President is an example of one-to-one
relationship. Another example of one-to-one relationship is House to Location. A house is
obviously in only one location.
2.6.3 Many-to-Many Relationship Type
The relationship between EMPLOYEE entity and PROJECT entity is an example of many-
to-many relationship. Many employees will be working in many projects hence the
relationship between employee and project is many-to- many relationship.
2.6.4 Many-to-One Relationship Type
The relationship between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT is an example of many-to-one
relationship. There may be many EMPLOYEES working in one DEPARTMENT. Hence
relationship between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT is many-to-one relationship. The four
relationship types are summarized and shown in Table 2.1.

2.7 Reducing ER Diagram to Tables

To implement the database, it is necessary to use the relational model. There is a simple
way of mapping from ER model to the relational model. There is almost one-to-one
correspondence between ER constructs and the relational ones.
2.7.1 Mapping Algorithm
The mapping algorithm gives the procedure to map ER diagram to tables.
The rules in mapping algorithm are given as:
While determining the minimum number of tables required for binary relationships with
given cardinality ratios, keep these thumb rules in your mind-
 For binary relationship with cardinality ration m : n , separate and individual
tables will be drawn for each entity set and relationship.
 For binary relationship with cardinality ratio either m : 1 or 1 : n , always
remember “many side will consume the relationship” i.e. a combined table will be
drawn for many side entity set and relationship set.
 For binary relationship with cardinality ratio 1 : 1 , two tables will be required.
You can combine the relationship set with any one of the entity sets.
Regular Entity

7
Regular entities are entities that have an independent existence and generally represent
real-world objects such as persons and products. Regular entities are represented by
rectangles with a single line.
2.7.2 Mapping Regular Entities
– Each regular entity type in an ER diagram is transformed into a relation. The name
given to the relation is generally the same as the entity type.
– Each simple attribute of the entity type becomes an attribute of the relation.
– The identifier of the entity type becomes the primary key of the corresponding relation.
Example 1
Mapping regular entity type tennis player

This diagram is converted into corresponding table as

Here,
– Entity name = Name of the relation or table.
In our example, the entity name is PLAYER which is the name of the table
– Attributes of ER diagram=Column name of the table.
In our example the Name, Nation, Position, and Number of Grand slams won which
forms the column of the table.
2.7.3 Converting Composite Attribute in an ER Diagram to Tables
When a regular entity type has a composite attribute, only the simple component
attributes of the composite attribute are included in the relation.
Example
In this example the composite attribute is the Customer address, which consists of
Street, City, State, and Zip.

8
When the regular entity type contains a multi-valued attribute, two new relations are
created.
The first relation contains all of the attributes of the entity type except the multi-valued
attribute.
The second relation contains two attributes that form the primary key of the second
relation. The first of these attributes is the primary key from the first relation, which
becomes a foreign key in the second relation. The second is the multi-valued attribute.

2.7.4 Mapping Multi-valued Attributes in ER Diagram to Tables

A multi-valued attribute is having more than one value. One way to map a multi-valued
attribute is to create two tables.
Example
In this example, the skill associated with the EMPLOYEE is a multi-valued attribute, since
an EMPLOYEE can have more than one skill as fitter, electrician, turner, etc.

9
2.7.5 Converting “Weak Entities” in ER Diagram to Tables
Weak entity type does not have an independent existence and it exists only through an
identifying relationship with another entity type called the owner.
For each weak entity type, create a new relation and include all of the simple attributes
as attributes of the relation. Then include the primary key of the identifying relation as a
foreign key attribute to this new relation.
The primary key of the new relation is the combination of the primary key of the
identifying and the partial identifier of the weak entity type. In this example DEPENDENT
is weak entity.

The corresponding table is given by

2.7.6 Converting Binary Relationship to Table

A relationship which involves two entities can be termed as binary relationship. This
binary relationship can be one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many.
Mapping one-to-Many Relationship
For each 1 – M relationship, first create a relation for each of the two entity type ’ s
participation in the relationship.
Example
One customer can give many orders. Hence the relationship between the two entities
CUSTOMER and ORDER is one-to-many relationship. In one-to-many relationship,
include the primary key attribute of the entity on the one-side of the relationship as a
foreign key in the relation that is on the many side of the relationship.

10
Here we have two entities CUSTOMER and ORDER. The relationship between CUSTOMER
and ORDER is one-to-many. For two entities CUSTOMER and ORDER, two tables namely
CUSTOMER and ORDER are created as shown later. The primary key CUSTOMER ID in
the CUSTOMER relation becomes the foreign key in the ORDER relation.
CUSTOMER

Binary one-to-one relationship can be viewed as a special case of one-to-many

relationships.
The process of mapping one-to-one relationship requires two steps. First, two relations
are created, one for each of the participating entity types. Second, the primary key of
one of the relations is included as a foreign key in the other relation.

2.7.7 Mapping Associative Entity to Tables

Many-to-many relationship can be modeled as an associative entity in the ER diagram.

Example 1. (Without Identifier)

Here the associative entity is ORDERLINE, which is without an identifier. That is the
associative entity ORDERLINE is without any key attribute.

11
The first step is to create three relations, one for each of the two participating entity
types and the third for the associative entity. The relation formed from the associative
entity is associative relation.

Example 2. (With Identifier)

Sometimes data models will assign an identifier (surrogate identifier) to the associative
entity type on the ER diagram. There are two reasons to motivate this approach:
1. The associative entity type has a natural identifier that is familiar to end user.
2. The default identifier may not uniquely identify instances of the associative entity.

(a) Shipment-No is a natural identifier to end user.

(b) The default identifier consisting of the combination of Customer-ID and Vendor-ID
does not uniquely identify the instances of SHIPMENT.

12
2.7.8 Converting Unary Relationship to Tables
Unary relationships are also called recursive relationships. The two most important cases
of unary relationship are one-to-many and many-to-many.
One-to-many Unary Relationship
Each employee has exactly one manager. A given employee may manage zero to many
employees. The foreign key in the relation is named Manager-ID. This attribute has the
same domain as the primary key Employee-ID.

2.7.9 Converting Ternary Relationship to Tables

A ternary relationship is a relationship among three entity types. The three entities given
in this example are PATIENT, PHYSICIAN, and TREATMENT. The PATIENT–TREATMENT is
an associative entity.

13
The primary key attributes – Patient ID, Physician ID, and Treatment Code – become
foreign keys in PATIENT TREATMENT. These attributes are components of the primary
key of PATIENT TREATMENT.

14