Entity-Relationship Model

CST203-2 Database Management Systems

Lecture 3
Describes data as entities, relationships and attributes
Database Design Process
Requirements collection process
 Data and functional requirements

Conceptual design
 Descriptions on entity types, relationships and constraints

Choose a DBMS

Data model mapping

Physical database design

Database system implementation

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 type is a collection of entries that have the same attributes

An entity set is a collection of entities of a particular entity type in the database at any
point in time
Entity Sets
customer and loan
Attributes
Particular properties of an entity that describe it

Example:
customer = (customer-id, customer-name, customer-street, customer-city)
loan = (loan-number, amount)

Domain – the set of permitted values for each attribute (value set)

Attribute types:
Simple and composite attributes.
Single-valued and multi-valued attributes
 E.g. multivalued attribute: phone-numbers
Stored and derived attributes
 Can be computed from other attributes
 E.g. age, given date of birth
Complex attributes
Key attributes
An attribute A of entity type E whose value set is V
 A:E P(V)

The value of attribute A of entity e

 A(e)

For composite attribute A, the value set V

 V = P(V1) * P(V2) * … * P(Vn)
Composite Attributes
Uniqueness constraint
Key attributes

Composite key attributes

 Composite key must be minimal

Prohibits any two entities from having the same value

for the key attribute at the same time
DEPARTMENT
Name, Number, {Locations}, Manager, ManagerStartDate

PROJECT
Name, Number, Location, ControllingDepartment

EMPLOYEE
Name(Fname, Initial, LName), ENO, Sex, Address, Salary, DOB, Department,
Supervisor, {WorksOn(Project, Hours)}

DEPENDENT
Employee, DependentName, Sex, DOB, Relationship
Relationship Sets
A relationship is an association among several entities
Example:
Hayes depositor A-102
customer entity relationship set account entity

A relationship type is a set of associations

A relationship set is a set of associations among entities from these entity types
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
e1, e2, …, en are entity instances
E1, E2, E3, ….. are entity types
Example:
(Hayes, A-102)  depositor
Relationship Set borrower
An attribute can also be property of a relationship set.

For instance, the depositor relationship set between entity sets

customer and account may have the attribute access-date
Degree of a Relationship Set
Refers to number of entity types that participate in a relationship type

Relationship types that involve two entity types are binary (or degree two)

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 as attributes
E-R Diagram with a Ternary Relationship
Converting Non-Binary Relationships to
Binary Form
 In general, any non-binary relationship can be represented using binary
relationships by creating an artificial entity set.
 Replace R between entity sets A, B and C by an entity set E, and three relationship sets:
1. RA, relating E and A 2.RB, relating E and B
3. RC, relating E and C
 Create a special identifying attribute for E
 Add any attributes of R to E
 For each relationship (ai , bi , ci) in R, create
1. a new entity ei in the entity set E 2. add (ei , ai ) to RA
3. add (ei , bi ) to RB 4. add (ei , ci ) to RC
Mapping Cardinalities
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

Cardinality ratio
Maximum number of relationship instances that an entity can participate in

1:1
1:N
N:1
N:N
Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any elements in the other set
Mapping Cardinalities affect ER Design
 Can make access-date an attribute of account, instead of a relationship attribute, if
each account can have only one customer
 I.e., the relationship from account to customer is many to one, or equivalently,
customer to account is one to many
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
Relationship Sets with Attributes
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
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 (including 0)
loans via borrower
Many-To-One Relationships
In a many-to-one relationship a loan is associated with several (including 0)
customers via borrower, a customer is associated with at most one loan via borrower
Many-To-Many Relationship

A customer is associated with several (possibly 0) loans via borrower

A loan is associated with several (possibly 0) 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