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Cardinality

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43 views29 pages

Cardinality

Uploaded by

typemismatch01
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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ER Modeling

E-R Model Constructs


• Entity instance - person, place, object, event,
concept (often corresponds to a row in a table)
• Entity Type – collection of entities (often
corresponds to a table)
• Attribute - property or characteristic of an entity
type (often corresponds to a field in a table)
• Relationship instance – link between entities
(corresponds to primary key-foreign key
equivalencies in related tables)
• Relationship type – category of
relationship…link between entity types
Composite attribute
What Should an Entity Be?
• SHOULD BE:
• – An object that will have many instances in
• the database
• – An object that will be composed of multiple
• attributes
• – An object that we are trying to model
• • SHOULD NOT BE:
• – A user of the database system
• – An output of the database system (e.g. a
• report)
Attributes
• Attribute - property or characteristic of an
• entity type
• • Classifications of attributes:
• – Required versus Optional Attributes
• – Simple versus Composite Attribute
• – Single-Valued versus Multivalued Attribute
• – Stored versus Derived Attributes
• – Identifier Attributes
Identifiers (Keys)
• Identifier (Key) - An attribute (or
• combination of attributes) that uniquely
• identifies individual instances of an entity
• type
• • Simple Key versus Composite Key
• • Candidate Key – an attribute that could be
• a key…satisfies the requirements for being
• a key
Characteristics of Identifiers
• Will not change in value
• • Will not be null
• • No intelligent identifiers (e.g. containing
• locations or people that might change)
• • Substitute new, simple keys for long,
• composite keys
Composite Attribute
Composite key attribute
Simple key attribute
Entity with a multivalued attribute (Skill) and
derived attribute (Years_Employed)
An attribute that is both multivalued
and composite
Degree of Relationships
• Degree of a relationship is the number of
entity types that
• participate in it
– Unary Relationship
– Binary Relationship
– Ternary Relationship
Cardinality of Relationships
• One-to-One
– Each entity in the relationship will have exactly one
related entity
• One-to-Many
– An entity on one side of the relationship can have
many related entities, but an entity on the other side
will have a maximum of one related entity
• Many-to-Many
– Entities on both sides of the relationship can have
many related entities on the other side
Basic relationship with only maximum
cardinalities showing
Mandatory minimum cardinalities
Optional cardinalities with unary
degree, one-to-one relationship
A binary relationship with an attribute

Here, the date completed attribute pertains specifically to the


employee’s completion of a course…it is an attribute of the
relationship
Entities can be related to one another in more
than one way

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