Unit-I Part B

Entity Relationship Model

What is Data Model?
• A data model is a collection of conceptual tools for describing data,
data relationships, data semantics, and consistency constraints.
• Data model used to describe the database system at the
requirements collection stage
• high level description.
• easy to understand for the enterprise managers.
• rigorous enough to be used for system building.

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Data Model
• The entity–relationship (E-R) model
• is a high-level data model.
• It consists of a collection of basic objects, called entities, and of relationships
among these objects.
• The relational model
• is a lower-level model.
• It uses a collection of tables to represent both data and the relationships among
those data.
• Due to its conceptual simplicity, majority of database products are based on the
relational model.
• Designers often formulate database schema design by first modeling data at a
high level, using the E-R model, and then translating it into the relational
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E-R Model
• Stands for an Entity-Relationship model
• High-level data model: Used to define the data elements and relationship for a
specified system.
• Widely used conceptual level Data Model
• It develops a conceptual design for the database.
• It also develops a very simple and easy to design view of data.
• In ER modeling, the database structure is portrayed as a diagram called an
entity-relationship diagram.
• Concepts available in the model
• Entities
• Attributes of entities.
• Relationships between entities.
• The ER model also has an associated diagrammatic representation, the ER diagram, which can
express the overall logical structure of a database graphically.

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Entity
• Entity - a thing of independent physical or conceptual existence and distinguishable.
• In the University database context, an individual student, faculty member, a class room, a
course are entities.

• Entity Set or Entity Type:

• It is a set of entities of the same type that share the same properties, or attributes.
• Student entity set – collection of all student entities.
• Course entity set – collection of all course entities.

• An entity is represented by a set of attributes:

• Descriptive properties possessed by all members of an entity set.
• Example:
• instructor = (ID, name, salary )
• course= (course_id, title, credits)
• Each entity has a value for each of its attributes.

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Attribute
• Each entity is described by a set of attributes/properties that have
associated values and information
• student entity
• StudName – name of the student.
• RollNumber – the roll number of the student.
• Mobile – Mobile nos of the student etc.
• All entities in an Entity set/type have the same set of attributes.
• For each attribute, there is a set of permitted values, called the domain,
or value set, of that attribute.
• The domain of attribute
• customer-name might be the set of all text strings of a certain length.
• loan-number might be the set of all strings of the form “L-n” where n is a
positive integer

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Database

• A database thus includes a collection of entity sets, each of which contains any number
of entities of the same type.
• Figure shows part of a bank database that consists of two entity sets: customer and loan
• An attribute of an entity set is a function that maps from the entity set into a domain.
• An entity set may have several attributes,
• Each entity can be described by a set of (attribute, data value) pairs, one pair for each
attribute of the entity set.
• For example, a particular customer entity may be described by the set
{(customer-id, 677- 89-9011), (customer-name, Hayes), (customer-street, Main)}

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Types of Attributes (1/2)
•Simple Attributes: having atomic or indivisible
values. Example:
• Dept_Name– a string
• PhoneNumber– a ten digit number

• Composite Attributes:
• having several components in the value.
• divided attributes into subparts (other attributes).
• a composite attribute may appear as a hierarchy (Address)
Example:
• Qualification with components- (DegreeName, Year,
UniversityName)
• Land_line_no: (stdcode,areano,actualno)
• Address:
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Types of Attributes (2/3)
• Derived Attributes: Attribute value is dependent on some other
attribute.
Example:
• Age depends on DateofBirth: So age is a derived attribute.
• Interest amount: Based on Loan Amount
• Null Value:
• An attribute takes a null value when an entity does not have a value for
it.
• Example: Middle Name
• Null can also designate that an attribute value is unknown.
• An unknown value may be either missing (the value does exist, but we do not
have that information)
• not known (we do not know whether or not the value actually exists).
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Types of Attributes (3/3)
• Single-valued:
• having only one value rather than a set of values.
• for instance,
• PlaceOfBirth – single string value.

• Multi-valued:
• having a set of values rather than a single value.
• for instance:
• CoursesEnrolled attribute for student (all courses in semester)
• EmailAddress attribute for student (personal email, official email)
• PreviousDegree attribute for student.

• Attributes can be:

• Simple single-valued
• Simple multi-valued
• Composite single-valued
• Composite multi-valued.

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Notations for Entities
• Entity: Rectangle
• Attributes: Ellipse connected to Rectangle
• Multivalued Attributes: Double Ellipse
• Composite Attributes:
• Ellipse Connected to ellipse
• Derived Attributes: Dashed Ellipse

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Domains of Attributes
• Each attribute takes values from a set called its domain
• For instance, studentAge – {17,18, …, 55}
• HomeAddress – character strings of length 35
• Domain of composite attributes:
• cross product of domains of component attributes
• Domain of multi-valued attributes:
• set of subsets of values from the basic domain

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Entity Sets and Key Attributes
• Key: an attribute or a collection of attributes whose value(s) uniquely
identify an entity in the entity set.
• Example:
• RollNumber - Key for Student entity set
• EmpID - Key for Faculty entity set
• HostelName, RoomNo - Key for Student entity set
• A key for an entity set may have more than one attribute.
• An entity set may have more than one key.
• Keys can be determined only from the meaning of the attributes in the
entity type.
• Determined by the designers

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Relationship Sets
• A relationship is an association among several entities.
• For example, we can define a relationship that associates customer Hayes
with loan L-15.
• This relationship specifies that Hayes is a customer with loan number
L-15.
• A relationship set is a set of relationships of the same type.
• Formally, it is a mathematical relation on n ≥ 2 (possibly
nondistinct) entity sets.
If E1, E2,...,En are entity sets, then a relationship set R is a subset of
where (e1, e2,...,en) is a relationship.
{(e1, e2,...,en) | e1 ∈ E1, e2 ∈ E2,...,en ∈ En
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Relationship Sets

• We define the
• relationship set borrower to denote the association between customers and the bank loans that the
customers have
• loan-branch to denote the association between a bank loan and the branch in which that loan is
maintained.
• The association between entity sets is referred to as participation; that is, the entity sets
E1, E2,...,En participate in relationship set R.
• A relationship instance in an E-R schema represents an association between the named
entities in the real-world enterprise that is being modeled
• Example:
• The individual customer entity Hayes, who has customer identifier 677-89-9011, and the loan entity
L-15 participate in a relationship instance of borrower.
• A relationship may also have attributes called descriptive attributes
• Entity sets student and course which participate in a relationship set registered-for

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Relationships (1/2)
• When two or more entities are associated with each other, we
have an instance of a Relationship.
• E.g.: student Ramesh enrolls in Discrete Mathematics course
• Relationship enrolls has Student and Course as the
participating entity sets.
• Formally, enrolls ⊆ Student × Course
• (s,c) ∈ enrolls ⇔ Student ‘s’ has enrolled in Course ‘c’
• Tuples in enrolls – relationship instances
• enrolls is called a relationship Type/Set

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Relationships (2/2)
• Relationship: diamond shaped box
• Rectangle of each participating entity is connected by a line to this
diamond.
• Name of the relationship is written in the box.
• Degree of Relationship: the number of participating
entities.
• Degree 2: binary : one that involves two entity sets.
• Degree 3: ternary:
• The relationship set works-on among employee, branch, and job is an example of a
ternary relationship.
• Degree n: n-ary
• Binary relationships are very common and widely used.
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Constraints: Cardinality Ratios
• Mapping cardinalities or Cardinality Ratios: Express the number of entities to which another
entity can be associated via a relationship set.
• For a binary relationship set the mapping cardinality must be one of the following types:
• One-to-one:
• An E1 entity may be associated with at most one E2 entity and
• similarly an E2 entity may be associated with at most one E1 entity.
• One-to-many:
• An E1 entity may be associated with many E2 entities whereas
• an E2 entity may be associated with at most one E1 entity.
• Many-to-one:
• An E2 entity may be associated with many E1 entities whereas
• an E1 entity may be associated with at most one E2 entity.
• Many-to-many:
• Many E1 entities may be associated with a single E2 entity and
• a single E1 entity may be associated with many E2 entities.

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Mapping Cardinalities

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Representing Cardinality Constraints in ER Diagram

• We express cardinality constraints by drawing either

• a directed line (->), signifying “one,”
•an undirected line (—), signifying “many,”
between the relationship set and the entity set.
• One-to-one relationship between an
instructor and a student :
• A student is associated with at most one instructor via the relationship
advisor
• A student is associated with at most one department via stud_dept

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One-to-Many Relationship
• One-to-Many relationship between an instructor and a student

• an instructor is associated with several (including 0) students via advisor

• a student is associated with at most one instructor via advisor

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Many-to-One Relationships
• Many-to-One relationship between an instructor and a student

• An instructor is associated with at most one student via advisor,

• A student is associated with several (including 0) instructors via adviso

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Many-to-Many Relationships
• Many-to-Many relationship between an instructor and a student

• An instructor is associated with several (possibly 0) students via

advisor
• A student is associated with several (possibly 0) instructors via advisor

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Reflection Quiz!!

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Reflection Quiz!!

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Constraints: Participation Constraints (1/2)
• An entity set may participate in relation either totally or partially
• Total participation (indicated by double line):
• The participation of an entity set E in a relationship set R is said to be total
if every entity in E participates in at least one relationship in R.
• Participate in some association in tuple or relationship
• Partial participation:
• If only some entities in E participate in relationships in R, the
participation of entity set E in relationship R is said to be partial
• Not all entities involved in association or tuple of relationship

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Participation Constraints (1/2)
• Participation of instructor in advisor is partial
• Participation of student in advisor relation is total
• Every student must have an associated instructor

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Keys
• Conceptually, individual entities are distinct
• A key allows us to identify a set of attributes that suffice to
distinguish entities from each other.
• Keys also help uniquely identify relationships, and thus
distinguish relationships from each other.

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Key: Super Key
• A super key :is a set of one or more attributes that collectively,
allow to identify uniquely an entity in the entity set.
• For example,
• the customer-id attribute of the entity set customer is sufficient to
distinguish one customer entity from another. Thus, customer-
id is a superkey.
• Similarly, the combination of customer-name and customer-id is a
superkey for the entity set customer.
• The customer-name attribute of customer is not a superkey, because
several people might have the same name
• The concept of a super key is not sufficient:
• a super key may contain extraneous attributes.
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Key: Candidate Key
• Super keys for which no proper subset is a super key. Such minimal
super keys are called candidate keys.
• It is possible that several distinct sets of attributes could serve as
a candidate key.
• Suppose that a combination of customer-name and customer-street is sufficient
to distinguish among members of the customer entity set.
• Then, both {customer-id} and {customer-name, customer-street} are candidate
keys.
• Although the attributes customer_id and customer-name together can
distinguish customer entities, their combination does not form a
candidate key, since the attribute customer-id alone is a candidate key.
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Keys
• Use the term primary key to denote a candidate key that is chosen
by the database designer for identifying entities within an entity
set.
• A key (primary, candidate, and super) is a property of the entity
set, rather than of the individual entities.
• Any two individual entities in the set are prohibited from having
the same value on the key attributes at the same time.

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Entity-Relationship Diagram
• Rectangles: which represent entity sets
• Ellipses: which represent attributes
• Diamonds: which represent relationship sets
• Lines: which link attributes to entity sets and entity sets to
relationship sets
• Double ellipses: which represent multivalued attributes
• Dashed ellipses: which denote derived attributes
• Double lines: which indicate total participation of an entity in
a relationship set
• Double rectangles: which represent weak entity sets

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• The relationship set borrower may be many-to-many, one-to-many,
many-to-one, or one-to-one.
• An undirected line from the relationship set borrower to the entity set loan specifies that
borrower is either a many-to-many or one-to-many relationship set from customer
to loan
• A directed line from the relationship set borrower to the entity set loan specifies that
borrower is either a one-to-one or many-to-one relationship set,
• from customer to loan; borrower cannot be a many-to-many or a one-to-many
relationship set from customer to loan.

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• If a relationship set has also some attributes associated with it,
then we link these attributes to that relationship set.
• E-R diagram with an attribute attached to a relationship set

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Exercise
• Draw the diagram for customer
• A composite attribute name, with component attributes first-name, middle-initial, and last-name
replaces the simple attribute customer-name of customer.
• A composite attribute address, whose component attributes are street, city, state, and zip-code
replaces the attributes customer-street and customer-city of customer.
• The attribute street is itself a composite attribute whose component attributes are street-number,
street-name, and apartment number.
• Multivalued attribute phone-number, Derived attribute age,

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Roles:
• Indicate roles in E-R diagrams by labeling the lines that connect
diamonds to rectangles.
• Example:
• role indicators manager and worker between the employee entity set and
the works-for relationship set.

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Ternary Relationship

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Structural Constraints
• Cardinality Ratio and Participation Constraints are together called
Structural Constraints.
• They are called constraints as the data must satisfy them to
be consistent with the requirements.
• Min-Max notation: pair of numbers (m,n) placed on the line connecting an entity
to the relationship.
• m: the minimum number of times a particular entity must appear in the
relationship tuples at any point of time
• 0 – partial participation
• ≥ 1 – total participation
• n: similarly, the maximum number of times a particular entity can appear in the
relationship tuples at any point of time

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Let’s Check understanding
• Draw a diagram for Library Management system

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 Bank Database
• Bank have Customer.
• Banks are identified by a name, code, address of main
office.
• Banks have branches.
• Branches are identified by a branch_no., branch_name,
address.
• Customers are identified by name, cust-id, phone number,
address.
• Customer can have one or more accounts.
• Accounts are identified by account_no., acc_type, balanc e.
• Customer can avail loans.
• Loans are identified by loan_id, loan_type and amount.
• Account and loans are related to bank’s branch.

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Extended E-R Features
Specialization
Generalization

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Specialization
• An entity set may include subgroupings of entities that are distinct
in some way from other entities in the set.
• For instance, a subset of entities within an entity set may have attributes
that are not shared by all the entities in the entity set.
• The E-R model provides a means for representing these distinctive entity
groupings.
• An entity set person {name, street, and city} further classified as customer
employe
• The process of designating subgroupings within an entity set is
called specialization.
• The specialization of person allows us to distinguish among persons
according to whether they are employees or customers.
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Specialization
• Specialization is depicted by a triangle component
labeled ISA ,stands for is-a
• a customer “is a” person.
• The ISA relationship may also be referred to as a
superclass-subclass relationship.
• Higher and lower-level entity sets are depicted as regular
entity set: rectangles containing the name of the entity set.
• Example:
• bank employees
• Officer
• Teller
• secretary
• Account:
• attributes account-number and balance.
• savings-account and checking-account.
• savings-account: All the attributes of account and interest-rate.
• Checkingaccount: all the attributes of account, overdraftamount.

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Generalization
• There are similarities between the customer entity set and the
employee entity set in the sense that they have several attributes in
common.
• This commonality can be expressed by generalization, which is a containment
relationship that exists between a higher-level entity set and one or more
lower-level entity sets.
• Person is the higher-level entity set and customer and employee are lower-level
entity sets.
• Higher- and lower-level entity sets also may be designated by the terms
superclass and subclass, respectively.
• The person entity set is the superclass of the customer and employee
subclasses.
• Generalization is a simple inversion of specialization
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Constraint
• A higher-level entity set with attributes and relationships that
apply to all of its lower-level entity sets
• Lower-level entity sets with distinctive features that apply only
within a particular lower-level entity set
• Constraint
• Condition defined-userdefined
• Disjoint- Overlapping
• Total - Partial

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Constraint
• Condition-defined: Lower-level entity sets, membership is evaluated on
the basis of whether or not an entity satisfies an explicit condition
or predicate.
• Account has the attribute account-type
• All account entities are evaluated on the defining account-type attribute.
• Only those entities that satisfy the condition account-type = “savings account” are allowed
to belong to the lower-level entity set person.
• All entities that satisfy the condition account-type = “checking account” are included in
checking account.
• Since all the lower-level entities are evaluated on the basis of the same attribute this type of
generalization is said to be attribute-defined.
• User-defined: Lower-level entity sets are not constrained by a
membership condition; rather, the database user assigns entities to a
given entity set

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Constraint
• Constraint relates to whether or not entities may belong to more than one
lower-level entity set within a single generalization.
• Disjoint: A disjointness constraint requires that an entity belong to no more
than one lower-level entity set.
•Example: an account entity can satisfy only one condition for the account-type
attribute either a savings account or a checking account, but cannot be both.
• Overlapping: The same entity may belong to more than one lower-level entity
set within a single generalization.
• Example: Consider the employee work team example, and assume that certain
managers participate in more than one work team.
A given employee may therefore appear in more than one of the team entity sets that
are lower-level entity sets of employee.
• Example: Generalization applied to entity sets customer and employee leads to a
higher-level entity set person.
The generalization is overlapping if an employee can also be a customer.

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Completeness constraint
• Completeness constraint on a generalization or specialization:
• specifies whether or not an entity in the higher-level entity set must belong to at
least one of the lower-level entity sets within the
generalization/specialization.
• Total generalization or specialization:
• Each higher-level entity must belong to a lower-level entity set
• Shown by using a double line to connect the box representing the higher-level
entity set to the triangle symbol
• The account generalization is total: All account entities must be either a savings
account or a checking account.
• Partial generalization or specialization:
• Some higher-level entities may not belong to any lower-level entity set.
• Partial generalization is the default.
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