A note on my slide conventions

The first one or two time I use a new word or

concept, I will denote it in bold text.

Sometimes there is very small text on the overhead

slides, you will probably find it impossible to read
in class, on the screen.
Don’t worry, this ultra small text is just there to
remind me to say something, or as extra annotation
to people who read the slides outside of lecture.
 The Plan for Today

Ten Minutes: Why do we need databases?

• Do we really need databases? Why not just place all the

information we want to store into a text file?

One Hour: An Introduction to the Entity-Relationship (ER) model.

• The ER model is a (semi) standard way to describe and design

databases.
Why do we need database management systems?
• A Database Management System (DBMS) is a tool that allows to
store, modify and query data.

However, I can store,

modify and query data in a
text file!

What can a DBMS do that

I can’t do with my text file
solution.

Eamonn’s strawman solution to manage data,

Chapter 1 of the textbook stick it all in a text file!
 Enforcing Constraints
• With the strawman solution, there is no way to enforce integrity
constraints on the data. In other words people can put bad data into
the text file.

• In contrast, a DBMS allows us to enforce all kinds of constraints.

This really helps (but does not guarantee) that our data is correct.

A typo gives Roberta Wickham a GPA of 44.00

 Scalability
• The strawman solution, might work for small datasets. What
happens when we have big datasets…

• Most real world datasets are so large that we can only have a small
fraction of them in main memory at any time, the rest has to stay on
disk.

• Even if we had lots of main memory, with 32 bit addressing we can

only refer to 4GB of data!
 Query Expressiveness
• The strawman solution would allow me to search for keywords or
certain numbers (slowly).

• With a DBMS I can search with much more expressive queries. For
example I can ask.. “Find all students whose GPA is greater than
2.5, and who don’t own a phone” or “what is the average GPA of the
students”
 Query Expressiveness II
• I could write some program that might allow more expressive
queries on my text file, but it would tied into the structure of my data
and the operating system etc..

• With a DBMS we are completely isolated from the physical

structure of our data. If we change the structure of our data (by
adding a field, for example) or moving from a PC to a Mac, nothing
changes at the front end!
 Different Views
• The strawman only allows one view of the data.

•With a DBMS I can arrange for different people to have different

views of the data. For example, I can see everything, a student can
see only his/her data, the TA can see…
 Concurrency
• Suppose I leave my text file on UNIX account, and I log in and
begin to modify it at the same time my TA is modifying it!

• A DBMS will automatically make sure that this kind of thing

cannot happen.
 Security
• Suppose I leave my text file on UNIX account, and a student hacks
in and changes their grades…

• A DBMS will allow multiple levels of security.

 Crash Recovery
• Suppose I am editing my text file and the system crashes!

• A DBMS is able to guarantee 100% recovery from system crashes.

The E-R Model
 The E-R Model

The Entity-Relationship Model

The E-R (entity-relationship) data model views the real world as a set
of basic objects (entities) and relationships among these objects.

It is intended primarily for the DB design process by allowing the

specification of an enterprise scheme. This represents the overall
logical structure of the DB.

Chapter 2 of the textbook

 Entities and Entity Sets
•An entity is an object that exists and is distinguishable from other
objects. For instance, Michelle Yeoh with S.S.N. 890-12-3456 is an
entity, as she can be uniquely identified as one particular person in
the universe.

•An entity may be concrete (a person or a book, for example) or

abstract (like a holiday or a disease or a concept).

•An entity set is a set of entities of the same type (e.g., all persons
having an account at a bank).

•Entity sets need not be disjoint. For example, the entity set Student
(all students in a university) and the entity set professor (all
professors in a university) may have members in common. (I.e a
computer science professor might take a class in anthropology).
 Entities and Entity Sets Continued
• An entity is represented by a set of attributes. (E.g. name, S.S.N.,
Phone-Num for “customer” entity.)

• The domain of the attribute is the set of permitted values (e.g. the
telephone number must be seven positive integers).

• Formally, an attribute is a function which maps an entity set into

a domain.

• Every entity is described by a set of (attribute, data value) pairs.

There is one pair for each attribute of the entity set.

• E.g. a particular student entity is described by the set {(name,

Yeoh), (S.S.N., 890-123-456), (street, Blaine), (city, Riverside)}.
 E-R diagrams
We can express the overall logical structure of a database
graphically with an E-R diagram.

Its components are:

•rectangles representing entity sets.
•ellipses representing attributes.
•diamonds representing relationship sets.
•lines linking attributes to entity sets and entity sets to
relationship sets.

S.S.N Street
name City
Students
Note that this is a poor example of a entity, since the name is represented as
one attribute and there is no street number attribute.
We will consider the problem of designing good entities later, here we are
just concerned with explaining their graphical representation.

Also note that one of the attributes is underlined, we will explain why later.
 E-R diagrams Continued
We can express the overall logical structure of a database
graphically with an E-R diagram.

Its components are: The “since” attribute in this

example is called a descriptive

•rectangles representing entity sets. attribute , since it describes the

mapping from A to B

•ellipses representing attributes.

•diamonds representing relationship sets.
•lines linking attributes to entity sets and entity sets to
relationship sets.
S.S.N Street since P.I.D
name
name City
Students advised Professor
by
 Key Constraints
We can also use arrows to indicate key constraints (often simply
referred to as constraints)
Suppose the university has the following rule: A professor is allowed to advise at
most one student. However two or more professors are allowed to advise the
same student. (I.e Dr. Keogh and Dr. Lonardi both advise Isaac).

This is an example of a many-to-one constraints, that is many

professors can advise a one single student. We can represent this
with an arrow as shown below.

S.S.N Street since P.I.D

name
name City
Students advised Professor
by
 Key Constraints Continued
•There are four possible key constraints, they express the number of
entities to which another entity can be associated via a relationship.
For binary relationship sets between entity sets A and B, the mapping
cardinality must be one of:
1.One-to-one: An entity in A is associated with at most one entity in
B, and an entity in B is associated with at most one entity in A.
2.One-to-many: An entity in A is associated with any number in B.
An entity in B is associated with at most one entity in A.
3.Many-to-one: An entity in A is associated with at most one entity
in B. An entity in B is associated with any number in A.
4.Many-to-many: Entities in A and B are associated with any
number from each other.
The appropriate key constraint for a particular relationship set
depends on the real world being modeled.
 Key Constraints: Examples
•One-to-one: An entity in A is associated with at most one entity in
B, and an entity in B is associated with at most one entity in A.
A man may be married to at most one women, and woman may be married
to at most one man (both men and women can be unmarried)

since
name name

Is
Men Married Women
to

Is Married to
This diagram is not a part of the ER model! It
is just an intuitive picture to explain a
concept
 Key Constraints: Examples
•One-to-many: An entity in A is associated with any number in B.
An entity in B is associated with at most one entity in A.
A women may be the mother of many (or no) children. A person may have
at most one mother.

Born on
name name

Is
Women's Low I.Q.
Club
Mother
of Club

Note that this example is not saying that Moe does not have a

Is mother of mother, since we know as a biological fact that everyone has

a mother.
It is simply the case that Moes mom is not a member of the
Women’s club.
 Key Constraints: Examples
•Many-to-one: An entity in A is associated with at most one entity in
B. An entity in B is associated with any number in A.
Many people can be born in any county, but any individual is born in at
most one country.

year
name Capital

Was
Bowling Country
Born
Club
in

Was born in Note that we are not saying that the Sea Captain was not born in some country, he
almost certainly was, we just don’t know which country, or it is not in our Country
entity set.
Also note that we are not saying that no one was born in Ireland, it is just that no one in
 Key Constraints: Examples
•Many-to-many: Entities in A and B are associated with any number
from each other.

Since
name name

Is
Girls Boys
Classmate
of

Is Classmate of
 Key Constraints
• The arrow positioning is simple once you get it straight in your
mind, so do some examples. Think of the arrow head as pointing to
the entity that “one‘” refers to.
• Some people call use the term “Mapping Cardinalities” to refer to
key constraints.
 Participation Constraints
Earlier we saw an example of a one-to-one key constraint, noting that a man
may be married to at most one women, and woman may be married to at
most one man (both men and women can be unmarried).
Suppose we want to build a database for the “Springfield Christian Married
Persons Association”. In this case everyone must be married! In database
terms their participation must be total. (the previous case that allows
unmarried people is said to have partial participation.
How do we represent this with ER diagrams? (answer on next slide)

since
name name

Is
Men Married Women
to

Is Married to
 Participation Constraints Cont.
Participation Constraints are indicated by bold lines in ER
diagrams.

We can use bold lines (to indicate participation constraints), and arrow lines (to
indicate key constraints) independently of each other to create an expressive
language of possibilities.

since
name name

Is
Men Married Women
to

Is Married to
 More on Relations
• Entities sets can be related to themselves.
We can annotate the roles played by the
entities in this case. Suppose that we
want to pair a mature student with a
novice student...

Course # Course #

Study Mature Study

Students Partner Students Partner
Novice

name name

When entities are related to themselves, it is almost

always a good idea to indicate their roles.
 Entity Attributes Revisited
•What is the correct choice of attributes to represent height?
Using two fields, one for feet the other for inches is probably the best solution if
we are never going to do arithmetic on the height, and you need to report the
height in a human intuitive way (dating agency).

If we are going to do calculations on the data (I.e calculate the BMI) we would
be much better off with just the height in inches. (medical records)

Feet Inches Inches

Team Team
Member Member
 Entity versus Attribute
Sometimes we have to decide whether a property of the world we
want to model should be an attribute of an entity, or an entity set
which is related to the attribute by a relationship set.

A major advantage of the latter approach is that we can easily model

the fact that a person can have multiple phones, or that a phone might
be shared by several students. (entities can not be set-valued)

Expires

Name SID Prefix Number

Name SID Phone
Can be
Student reached Phone #
Student at
 Entity versus Attribute Cont.
A classic example of a feature that is best modeled as a an entity set which is related
to the attribute by a relationship set is an address.

Very bad choice for most applications. It would

make it difficult to pretty print mailing labels, it
Name SID Address
would make it difficult to test validity of the data, it
would make it difficult/impossible to do queries such
as “how many students live in riverside?” Student

Name SID
A better choice, but it only allows a student to have
one address. Many students have a two or more
Student
address (I.e. a different address during the summer
months) This method cannot handle this.
Num Street City

Name SID Num Street City

The best choice for this problem
Student Address Address
 Domains Revisited
We already said…
•The domain of the attribute is the set of permitted values (e.g. the
telephone number must be seven positive integers).

Defining the correct domain for an attribute is an important skill.

Making a mistake at this stage can cause huge problems later on.

What is the domain for SEX?

is it MALE, FEMALE? (Olympics)

is it MALE, FEMALE, UNKNOWN? (Fossils)

is it MALE, FEMALE, DECLINE TO STATE? (Politically Correct)

 Domains Revisited Cont.
What is the correct domain for GPA?

What is the correct domain for human age? (consider a bible database)

What is the correct domain for Phone Number? (What about foreign … )

What is the correct domain for Bank Account Balance?

 Keys
Differences between entities must be expressed in terms of attributes.

• A superkey is a set of one or more attributes which, taken collectively, allow us

to identify uniquely an entity in the entity set.
• For example, in the entity set student; name and S.S.N. is a superkey.
• Note that name alone is not, as two students could have the same name.
• A superkey may contain extraneous attributes, and we are often interested in the
smallest superkey. A superkey for which no subset is a superkey is called a
candidate key.

Name S.S.N
We can see that {Name,S.S.N} is a
Lisa 1272 superkey
Name S.S.N
Bart 5592 In this example, S.S.N. is a
candidate key, as it is minimal, and
Student Lisa 7552 uniquely identifies a students
entity.
Sue 5592
 Keys Cont.
•A primary key is a candidate key (there may be more than one) chosen by the DB
designer to identify entities in an entity set.

In the example below…

{Make,Model,Owner,State,License#,VIN#} is a superkey Owner
Make Model
{State,License#,VIN#} is a superkey
{Make,Model,Owner} is not a superkey
Auto
{State,License#} is a candidate key
{VIN#} is a candidate key
State License VIN
VIN# is the logical choice for primary key

Make Model Owner State License # VIN #

Ford Festiva Mike CA SD123 34724
BMW 200 Joe CA JOE 55725
Ford Escort Sue AZ TD4352 75822
Honda Civic Bert CA 456GHf 77924
 Keys Cont.
•The primary key is denoted in an ER diagram by underlining.

•An entity has a primary key is called a strong entity.

Make Model Owner

Auto

State License VIN

Note that a good choice of primary key is very important!

For example, it is usually much faster to search a database by

the primary key, than by any other key (we will see why later).
 Keys Cont.
An entity set that does not possess sufficient attributes to form a primary key is
called a weak entity set.

In the example below there are two different sections of C++ being offered (lets
say, for example, one by Dr. Keogh, one by Dr. Lee).

{Name,Number} is not a superkey, and therefore course is a weak entity.

This is clearly a problem, we need some way to

distinguish between different courses….
Name Number

Name Number
C++ CS12
Java CS11
C++ CS12
Course
LISP CS15
 Keys Cont.
In order to be able to uniquely refer to an item in a weak entity set we must
consider some (or all) of it’s attributes in conjunction with some strong entities
primary key. The entity whose primary key is being used is called the identifying
owner.

Name PID Name Number

Professor Teaches Course

For this to work, two conditions must be met.

•The weak entity set must have total Name Number
participation in the relationship Name PID C++ CS12
•The identifying owner and the weak entity Keogh 2345 Java CS11
must participate is a one-to-many
Lee 7356 C++ CS12
relationship.
Chan 3571 LISP CS15
 Ternary Relationships
So far, we have only considered binary relationships, however
it is possible to have higher order relationships, including
ternary relationships.
Consider the following example that describes the fact that employees at a bank
work in one or more bank branches, and have one or more job descriptions.

Why not remove the job entity by placing the title and level attributes as part of employee?
 Ternary Relationships
Sometimes you have a choice of a single ternary
relationship or two binary relationships…
In general, unless you really
need a ternary relationship, Name SSN
use binary relationships.

FACT: Every ternary (and Males

higher order) relationship Name SSN Name SSN
can be converted into a set
of binary relationships.
Females Parent Students
of

Name SSN Name SSN Name SSN

Females Mother Students Father Males

of of
 Aggregation
Consider this ER model, which we have seen before…

We need to add to it, to reflect that managers manage the

various tasks performed by an employee at a branch
 Aggregation Cont. Note that I have not
shown the attributes
for graphical
simplicity.

• Relationship sets works-on and manages

represent overlapping information
• Every manages relationship corresponds
to a works-on relationship
• However, some works-on relationships
may not correspond to any manages
relationships
• So we can’t discard the works-on
relationship
 Aggregation Cont.

We can eliminate this redundancy via aggregation

• Allows relationships between relationships
• Abstraction of relationship into new entity

• Without introducing redundancy, the new diagram

represents:
•An employee works on a particular job at a
particular branch
•An employee, branch, job combination may have an
associated manager.
Redundancy is an enemy

Name SSN

FemalePatient

Is_Mother? Num_Children

What's wrong with this ER Model?

 ER Design Decisions
• The use of an attribute or entity set to represent an object.
• Whether a real-world concept is best expressed by an entity set
or a relationship set.
• The use of a ternary relationship versus a pair of binary
relationships.
• The use of a strong or weak entity set.
• The use of aggregation – can treat the aggregate entity set as a
single unit without concern for the details of its internal structure.
 Next Time
How to convert an ER diagram into a relational database,
and introduction to relational algebra.

Study Suggestion
It is tempting to think you understand the many concepts introduced
here because you understand the examples. To fully understand
reinforce your understanding, you should try to come up with
several more examples of each concept.
• Think up 3 examples of a many to one relationship
• Think up 3 examples of a weak entity set.
• Think up 3 examples of a …