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Unit – II
2. E-R Data Models
2.1 Introduction :
• E-R stand for Entity Relationship Model.
• ER model was introduced by Peter Chenn in 1976.
• The ER model defines the Conceptual (or logical) view of database.
• It is used to designing database.
• It works around real-world entities and the relationships among them.
• A database schema in the ER Model can be represented pictorially as ER diagrams.
• An ER diagram maps well into a relational schema.
•
❖ Why ER Model is Useful ?
• An ER Model maps well to the relational model i.e. the constructs Used in ER Model can be
easily transformed into relational tables.
• An ER Model can be Used by the database designer to communicates the database design to the
user.
• An ER Model can be used as a design plan by the database developer to implement a data model
in specific DBMS software.

ER model contain three basic components,

1. Entity
2. Attributes
3. Relationships

1. Entity –
• An entity is objects that are represented in the database or an entity is a person or thing for which
data is collected and maintained.
• In ER model, an entity is represented using rectangles.

• Tangible: Entities which physically exit in real word.

• E.g: car, pen, bank_locker

• Intangible: Entities which exists logically.

• E.g: Account Name.
For example –
In a SCHOOL database, STDUENT can be considered as entity.

* Entity Set –
An entity set is a collection of similar types of entities. An entity set may contain entities with attribute
sharing similar values.

For example –
A STUDENTS set may contain all the students of a SCHOOL.

2. Attributes –
An attribute describes a property or characteristic of an entity or attributes are the properties of entities.
In an ER model, an attribute name appears in an oval or ellipse that has a line to the corresponding entity
box.

For example –
ROLLNO is an attribute of a STUDENT as shown in following figure:

* Types of Attributes –
1) Simple and Single Valued Attributes
2) Composite Attributes
3) Derived Attributes
4) Multi-Valued Attributes
5) Key Attribute

1) Simple and Single Valued Attributes –

Simple attributes are those attributes that are not divisible into subparts whereas single valued attributes
are those attributes that contains only atomic (single) values.

For example –
If we consider the ROLLNO, then ROLLNO is not divided into subparts, so it is a simple attribute as
well as it holds exactly one value thus, it is a single-valued attribute as shown in following figure,
2) Composite Attributes –
An attribute can also have their own attributes called as composite attribute or composite attributes are
those attributes that can be divided into subparts.

For example –
If we consider the NAME in two parts, FIRSTNAME & LASTNAME then the NAME attribute is a
composite as well as FIRSTNAME & LASTNAME are component attributes as shown in following figure,

Student

Name

F. N L.N

3) Derived Attributes –
Attributes which can be derived from some other attributes values are called derived attributes. Derived
attributes are denoted by Dashed-Oval Shaped Symbol.

For example –
The AGE of a student can be determined from the Date of Birth as shown in following figure,

4) Multivalued Attributes –
Attributes that have a set of values for a particular entity are called multivalued attributes. Multivalued
attribute is denoted by Double Oval Shaped Symbol.

For example –
The LAB_ASSISTANT attribute for the entity LABSECTION is multi-valued as shown in following
figure,
5) Key Attribute –
It represents primary key. It is an attribute that has unique value for each entity in an entity set.

For example –
ROLLNO is a key attribute in a STUDENT entity set as shown in following figure,
2.4 Constraints:
• Constraints enforce limits to the data or type of data that can be inserted/updated/deleted from a table.
• The whole purpose of constraints is to maintain the data integrity during an update/delete/insert into a
table.

Types of constraints

• NOT NULL
• UNIQUE
• DEFAULT
• CHECK
• Key Constraints – PRIMARY KEY, FOREIGN KEY

A) NOT NULL:

• NOT NULL constraint makes sure that a column does not hold NULL value.

• When we don’t provide value for a particular column while inserting a record into a table, it takes
NULL value by default.

• By specifying NULL constraint, we can be sure that a particular column(s) cannot have NULL values.

B) UNIQUE:

• UNIQUE Constraint enforces a column or set of columns to have unique values.

• If a column has a unique constraint, it means that particular column cannot have duplicate values in a
table.

C) DEFAULT:

• The DEFAULT constraint provides a default value to a column when there is no value provided while
inserting a record into a table.

D) CHECK:

• This constraint is used for specifying range of values for a particular column of a table.

• When this constraint is being set on a column, it ensures that the specified column must have the value
falling in the specified range.

E) Key constraints:
✓ PRIMARY KEY:

• Primary key uniquely identifies each record in a table. It must have unique values and cannot contain
nulls. (Unique + Not Null)

• In the below example the ROLL_NO field is marked as primary key, that means the ROLL_NO field
cannot have duplicate and null values.

✓ FOREIGN KEY:

• Foreign keys are the columns of a table that points to the primary key of another table. They act as a
cross-reference between tables.
Keys

• Key plays an important role in relational database; it is used for identifying unique rows from table.
• It also establishes relationship among tables.

Types of keys in DBMS

1. Primary Key – A primary is a column or set of columns in a table that uniquely identifies tuples (rows)
in that table.

2. Candidate Key – A super key with no redundant attribute is known as candidate key.

3. Super Key – A super key is a set of one of more columns (attributes) to uniquely identify rows in a table.

4. Alternate Key – Out of all candidate keys, only one gets selected as primary key, remaining keys are
known as alternate or secondary keys.

5. Composite Key – A key that consists of more than one attribute to uniquely identify rows (also known
as records & tuples) in a table is called composite key.

6. Foreign Key – Foreign keys are the columns of a table that points to the primary key of another table.
They act as a cross-reference between tables.
It is an attribute or set of attribute that refrences primery key of same table or others table(relation) .
2.5 What is an Entity Relationship Diagram (ER Diagram)?
• An ER diagram shows the relationship among entity sets.
• An entity set is a group of similar entities and these entities can have attributes.
• ER diagram shows the complete logical structure of a database.
• Lets have a look at a simple ER diagram to understand this concept.

A simple ER Diagram:
✓ In the following diagram we have two entities Student and College and their relationship.
✓ The relationship between Student and College is many to one as a college can have many students
however a student cannot study in multiple colleges at the same time.
✓ Student entity has attributes such as Stu_Id, Stu_Name & Stu_Addr and College entity has attributes
such as Col_ID & Col_Name.

Here are the geometric shapes and their meaning in an E-R Diagram. We will discuss these terms in detail in the next
section(Components of a ER Diagram) of this guide so don’t worry too much about these terms now, just go through them once.
Rectangle: Represents Entity sets

Ellipses/Oval:
Attributes

Diamonds: Relationship Set

Double Ellipses: Multivalued Attributes.

Double Rectangles: Weak Entity Sets

Dashed Ellipses: Derived Attributes

Lines:

They link attributes to Entity Sets and Entity sets to Relationship Set.

Double Lines:

Total participation of an entity in a relationship set.

2.6. Extended E-R Features:

1) Specialization –

• Specialization is opposite of Generalization.

• In Specialization, an entity is broken down into sub-entities based on their characteristics.
• Specialization is a "Top-down approach" where higher level entity is specialized into two or more lower
level entities.
• Specialization is used to identify the subset of an entity set that shares some distinguishing
characteristics.
• Specialization can be repeatedly applied to refine the design of schema
• depicted by triangle component labeled ISA.

Example: Specialization
Vehicle entity. can be a Car, Truck or Motorcycle.
Normally, the superclass is defined first, the subclass and its related attributes are defined next, and
relationship set are then added.
 2)Generalization

• Generalization is the process of extracting common properties from a set of entities and create a
generalized entity from it.
• Generalization is a "bottom-up approach" in which two or more entities can be combined to form a
higher level entity if they have some attributes in common.
✓ subclasses are combined to make a superclass.

Example: Consider we have 3 sub entities Car, Bus and Motorcycle. Now these three entities can be generalized
into one higher-level entity (or super class) named as Vehicle.

2) Higher level and lower level entity sets –

• This property is created by specialization and generalization.
• The attributes of higher level entity sets are inherited by lower level entity sets.
For example: In above figure “customers” and “employee” inherits the attributes of “person”.

3) Attribute inheritance:
• When given entity set is involved as a lower entity set in only one is a relationship, it is referred as
a single attribute inheritance.
• If lower entity set is involved in more than one is a relationship, it is referred as a multi attribute
inheritance.
 4) Aggregation:
• Aggregation is used when we need to express a relationship among relationships.
• Aggregation is an abstraction through which relationships are treated as higher level entities.
• Aggregation is a process when a relationship between two entities is considered as a single
entity and again this single entity has a relationship with another entity

Example: (Aggregation)

With Aggregation (without introducing redundancy) the ER diagram can be represented as:

✓ An employee works on a particular job at a particular branch.

✓ An employee, branch, job combination may have an associated manager
2.7. Example of E-R data dase design:
1) E-R digram for Banking System:

2) E-R digram for Tracher & Department:

3) E-R digram for Hotel Managenent:
4) E-R digram for university