Entity-Relationship Model

• Entity Sets
• Relationship Sets
• Mapping Constraints
• E-R Diagram
• Extended E-R Features
• Design of an E-R Database Schema
• Reduction of an E-R Schema to Tables
Entity Sets
• A database can be modeled as:
• a collection of entities,
• relationship among entities.
• An entity is an object that exists and is distinguishable from
other objects.
• Example: specific person, company, event, plant
• Entities have attributes
• Example: people have names and addresses
• An entity set or entity type is a set of entities of the same type
that share the same properties.
• Example: set of all persons, companies, trees, holidays
Entity Sets customer and loan
customer-id customer- customer- customer- loan- amount
name street city number
Attributes
• An entity is represented by a set of attributes, that is descriptive
properties possessed by all members of an entity set.
Example:
customer = (customer-id, customer-name,
customer-street, customer-city)
loan = (loan-number, amount)
• Domain – the set of permitted values for each attribute
Types of Attributes-
1. Simple attributes
2. Composite attributes
3. Single valued attributes
4. Multi valued attributes
5. Derived attributes
6. Key attributes
1. Simple Attributes-

• Simple attributes are those attributes which can not be

divided further.
• Example-

• Here, all the attributes are simple attributes as they can not
be divided further.
2. Composite Attributes-

• Composite attributes are those attributes which are composed

of many other simple attributes.
• Example-
•

• Here, the attributes “Name” and “Address” are composite

attributes as they are composed of many other simple
attributes.
3. Single Valued Attributes-

• Single valued attributes are those attributes which can take

only one value for a given entity from an entity set.
• Example-

• Here, all the attributes are single valued attributes as they can
take only one specific value for each entity.
4. Multi Valued Attributes-

• Multi valued attributes are those attributes which can take

more than one value for a given entity from an entity set.
• Example-

• Here, the attributes “Mob_no” and “Email_id” are multi

valued attributes as they can take more than one values for a
given entity.
5. Derived Attributes-

• Derived attributes are those attributes which can be derived

from other attribute(s).
• Example-

• Here, the attribute “Age” is a derived attribute as it can be

derived from the attribute “DOB”.
6. Key Attributes-

• Key attributes are those attributes which can identify an entity

uniquely in an entity set.
• Example-

• Here, the attribute “Roll_no” is a key attribute as it can

identify any student uniquely.
Relationship Sets
• A relationship is an association among several entities
Example:
Roles
• Entity sets of a relationship need not be distinct
• The labels “manager” and “worker” are called roles; they specify how
employee entities interact via the works-for relationship set.
• Roles are indicated in E-R diagrams by labeling the lines that connect
diamonds to rectangles.
• Role labels are optional, and are used to clarify semantics of the relationship
• RECURSIVE ROLES:
• However, in some cases the same entity type participates
more than once in a relationship type in different roles. In such
cases the role name becomes essential for distinguishing the
meaning of each participation. Such relationship types are
called recursive relationships,
EMPLOYEE SUPERVISION

2 r1
e1
1

e2 r2
1

e3 2 r3
1
e4 2 r4

e5 r5
Degree of a Relationship Set
• Refers to number of entity sets that participate in a relationship
set.
• Relationship sets that involve two entity sets are binary (or
degree two). Relationship sets that involve three entity sets are
ternary Generally, most relationship sets in a database system are
binary.
• Relationship sets may involve more than two entity sets.
E.g. Suppose employees of a bank may have jobs
(responsibilities) at multiple branches, with different jobs at
different branches. Then there is a ternary relationship set
between entity sets employee, job and branch
• Relationships between more than two entity sets are rare. Most
relationships are binary. (More on this later.)
Mapping Cardinalities or Cardinality
Ratio
• 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
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
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
 EXAMPLES

MANAGES, a 1:1 relationship type between EMPLOYEE and

DEPARTMENT.

WORKS_FOR, a 1:N relationship type between DEPARTMENT and

EMPLOYEE.

CONTROLS, a 1:N relationship type between DEPARTMENT and

PROJECT

SUPERVISION, a 1:N relationship type between EMPLOYEE (in the

supervisor role) and EMPLOYEE (in the supervisee role).

WORKS_ON, determined to be an M:N relationship type with

PROJECT and EMPLOYEE.
Relationship Sets with
Attributes
Cardinality Constraints
• 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.
• E.g.: One-to-one relationship:
• A customer is associated with at most one loan via the relationship
borrower
• A loan is associated with at most one customer via borrower
One-To-Many Relationship
• In the one-to-many relationship a loan is associated with at
most one customer via borrower, a customer is associated with
several loans via borrower
Many-To-One Relationships
• In a many-to-one relationship a loan is associated with several
customers via borrower, a customer is associated with at most
one loan via borrower
Many-To-Many Relationship

• A customer is associated with several loans via borrower

• A loan is associated with several customers via borrower
 Participation of an Entity Set in a Relationship Set
 Total participation (indicated by double line): every entity in the entity
set participates in at least one relationship in the relationship set
 E.g. participation of loan in borrower is total
 every loan must have a customer associated to it via borrower
 Partial participation: some entities may not participate in any
relationship in the relationship set
 E.g. participation of customer in borrower is partial
keys in DBMS
• A DBMS key is an attribute or set of an attribute which
helps you to identify a row(tuple) in a relation(table).

• They allow you to find the relation between two tables.

Keys help you uniquely identify a row in a table by a
combination of one or more columns in that table.
Example:
Employee ID FirstName LastName
11 Andrew Johnson
22 Tom Wood
33 Alex Hale

In the above-given example

• employee ID is a primary key because it uniquely identifies an
employee record.
• In this table, no other employee can have the same employee ID.
Why we need a Key?

reasons for using Keys in the DBMS system.

• Keys help you to identify any row of data in a table.
• In a real-world application, a table could contain thousands of
records.
• Moreover, the records could be duplicated. Keys ensure that
you can uniquely identify a table record despite these
challenges.
Various Keys in Database
Management System
• DBMS has followling seven types of Keys each have their
different functionality:
1. Super Key
2. Primary Key
3. Candidate Key
4. Alternate Key
5. Foreign Key
6. Composite Key
7. Surrogate Key
What is the Super key?

• It is defined as a group of single or multiple attributes within a

table that can uniquely identified a record in a table.
Example:

EmpSN EmpNum Empname

9812345098 AB05 Smith
9876512345 AB06 Roslyn
199937890 AB07 James

In the above-given example, EmpSN and EmpNum name are

superkeys
 Home Work
Q. IDENTIFY SUPERKEYS

S_ID NAME PHONE_NUMBER AGE

1 AKHIL 9843876545 20
2 AKHIL 9867554324 22
3 BHANU 8735242637 21
4 PRIYA 6557382922 20
What is a Primary Key?

• A column or group of columns in a table which helps us to

uniquely identifies every row in that table is called a primary
key.
• Primary can't be a duplicate. The same value can't appear
more than once in the table.
Rules for defining Primary key:
• Two rows can't have the same primary key value
• The primary key field cannot be null.
• The value in a primary key column can never be modified or
updated if any foreign key refers to that primary key.
Example:
StudID Roll No First Name LastName Email
1 11 Tom Price [email protected]
2 12 Nick Wright [email protected]
3 13 Dana Natan [email protected]

In the above following example: StudID is a Primary Key.

What is the Alternate key?

• All the keys which are not primary key are called an alternate
key.
• It is a candidate key which is currently not the primary key.
However, A table may have single or multiple choices for the
primary key.
 Example:
StudID Roll No First Name LastName Email
1 11 Tom Price [email protected]
2 12 Nick Wright [email protected]
3 13 Dana Natan [email protected]

• StudID, Roll No, Email are qualified to become a primary key.

• But since StudID is the primary key, Roll No, Email becomes the alternative key.
What is a Candidate Key?

• A super key with no repeated attribute is called candidate key.

• The Primary key should be selected from the candidate keys.
Every table must have at least a single candidate key.
Properties of Candidate key:
• It must contain unique values
• Candidate key may have multiple attributes
• Must not contain null values
• Uniquely identify each record in a table
 Example:
StudID Roll No First Name LastName Email
1 11 Tom Price [email protected]
2 12 Nick Wright [email protected]
3 13 Dana Natan [email protected]

• In the given above table Stud ID, Roll No, and Email are candidate keys
which help us to uniquely identify the student record in the table.
What is the Foreign key?

• A foreign key is a column which is added to create a

relationship with another table.
• Foreign keys help us to maintain data integrity and also allows
navigation between two different instances of an entity.
• Every relationship in the model needs to be supported by a
foreign key.
Example:
Table1:Department

DeptCode DeptName
001 Science
002 English
005 Computer
Table2:Teacher

Teacher ID Fname Lname

B002 David Warner
B017 Sara Joseph
B009 Mike Brunton
• In previous table, adding the foreign key in Deptcode to the
Teacher name, we can create a relationship between the two
tables.

Teacher ID DeptCode Fname Lname

B002 002 David Warner
B017 002 Sara Joseph
B009 001 Mike Brunton

• This concept is also known as Referential Integrity.

What is the Compound key?

• If we use multiple attributes to create a primary key then that

primary key is called composite key or compound or
concatenate key.
Example
Cust_id Order_id Sale_details
A001 001 Reached
A002 002 Not reached
What is a Surrogate Key?
• An artificial key which aims to uniquely identify each record is
called a surrogate key.
• These kind of key are unique because they are created when
you don't have any natural primary key.
• They do not lend any meaning to the data in the table.
Surrogate key is usually an integer.

• CHAUDHARY RAVI KUMAR

Example
Fname Lastname Start Time End Time
Anne Smith 09:00 18:00
Jack Francis 08:00 17:00
Anna McLean 11:00 20:00
Shown Willam 14:00 23:00

• Above, given example, shown shift timings of the different

employee.
• In this example, a surrogate key is needed to uniquely identify each
employee.
• In the table when the primary key is too big or complicated.
Weak Entity Sets (Cont.)
• We depict a weak entity set by double rectangles.
• We underline the discriminator of a weak entity set with a
dashed line.
• payment-number – discriminator of the payment entity set
• Primary key for payment – (loan-number, payment-number)
ER MODEL NOTATIONS
E-R Diagram for a Banking
Enterprise
E-R Diagrams

 Rectangles represent entity sets.

 Diamonds represent relationship sets.
 Lines link attributes to entity sets and entity sets to relationship sets.
 Ellipses represent attributes
 Double ellipses represent multivalued attributes.
 Dashed ellipses denote derived attributes.
 Underline indicates primary key attributes (will study later)
E-R Diagram With Composite, Multivalued, and Derived Attributes
How about doing
another ER design
interactively on the
board?
Summary of Symbols Used in E-R
Notation