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Entity-Relationship Model: CST203-2 Database Management Systems

The document describes the entity-relationship model and its key concepts. It discusses how the ER model describes data using entities, relationships, and attributes. It also describes the database design process, entity sets, relationship sets, attributes, mapping cardinalities between entity sets, and ER diagrams. Key concepts covered include entity types, relationship types, domains, roles, and participation constraints.

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Buddhi Dhanushka
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72 views30 pages

Entity-Relationship Model: CST203-2 Database Management Systems

The document describes the entity-relationship model and its key concepts. It discusses how the ER model describes data using entities, relationships, and attributes. It also describes the database design process, entity sets, relationship sets, attributes, mapping cardinalities between entity sets, and ER diagrams. Key concepts covered include entity types, relationship types, domains, roles, and participation constraints.

Uploaded by

Buddhi Dhanushka
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 PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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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

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