ENTITY

RELATIONSHIP
DIAGRAM
CONTENT

• I. Definition
• II. Entities
• III. Attributes
• IV. Relationships
OVERVIEW

• An Entity–relationship model (ER model) describes the

structure of a database with the help of a diagram, which is
known as Entity Relationship Diagram (ER Diagram).
• An ER model is a design or blueprint of a database that can later
be implemented as a database. The main components of E-R
model are: entity set and relationship set.
I. ENTITY RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAM

• An ER diagram shows the relationship among entity sets. An

entity set is a group of similar entities and these entities can have
attributes.
• In terms of DBMS, an entity is a table or attribute of a table in
database, so by showing relationship among tables and their
attributes, ER diagram shows the complete logical structure of a
database.
II. COMPONENTS OF ERD

What is primary key, foriegn key,

Super key, Candidate key?
1I. ENTITY

• An entity is an object or component of data. An entity is represented as

rectangle in an ER diagram.
For example: In the following ER diagram we have two entities Student
and College and these two entities have many to one relationship as many
students study in a single college. We will read more about relationships
later, for now focus on entities.
1I A. ENTITY
II. A WEAK ENTITY

• An entity that cannot be uniquely identified by its own attributes and relies
on the relationship with other entity is called weak entity. The weak entity
is represented by a double rectangle. For example – a bank account cannot
be uniquely identified without knowing the bank to which the account
belongs, so bank account is a weak entity.
II. B WEAK ENTITY
III. ATTRIBUTES
ROW=> RECORD=>TUPLE
• An attribute describes the property of an entity. An attribute is represented
as Oval in an ER diagram. There are four types of attributes:
• 1. Key attribute
2. Composite attribute
3. Multivalued attribute
4. Derived attribute
1. KEY ATTRIBUTE

• A key attribute can uniquely identify an

entity from an entity set. For example,
student roll number can uniquely
identify a student from a set of students.
Key attribute is represented by oval
same as other attributes however
the text of key attribute is underlined.
2. COMPOSITE ATTRIBUTE

• An attribute that is a combination of

other attributes is known as
composite attribute. For example, In
student entity, the student address is
a composite attribute as an address is
composed of other attributes such as
pin code, state, country.
3. MULTIVALUED ATTRIBUTE

• An attribute that can hold multiple values is known as multivalued

attribute. It is represented with double ovals in an ER Diagram. For
example – A person can have more than one phone numbers so the phone
number attribute is multivalued.
4. DERIVED ATTRIBUTE

• A derived attribute is one whose

value is dynamic and derived from
another attribute. It is represented
by dashed oval in an ER Diagram.
For example – Person age is a
derived attribute as it changes over
time and can be derived from
another attribute (Date of birth).
IV. RELATIONSHIPS

• A relationship is represented by diamond shape in ER diagram, it shows

the relationship among entities. There are four types of relationships:
1. One to One
2. One to Many
3. Many to One
4. Many to Many
1. ONE TO ONE RELATIONSHIP

• When a single instance of an

entity is associated with a
single instance of another
entity then it is called one to
one relationship. For
example, a person has only
one passport and a passport
is given to one person.
2. ONE TO MANY RELATIONSHIP

• When a single instance of an entity

is associated with more than one
instances of another entity then it is
called one to many relationship. For
example – a customer can place
many orders but a order cannot be
placed by many customers.
3. MANY TO ONE RELATIONSHIP

• When more than one instances of an

entity is associated with a single
instance of another entity then it is
called many to one relationship. For
example – many students can study
in a single college but a student
cannot study in many colleges at the
same time.
4. MANY TO MANY RELATIONSHIP

• When more than one instances of

an entity is associated with more
than one instances of another
entity then it is called many to
many relationship. For example,
a can be assigned to many
projects and a project can be
assigned to many students.