Database Design Using the E-R Model

Database System Concepts, 7th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
 Design Phases

 Initial phase -- characterize fully the data needs of the prospective

database users.
 Second phase -- choosing a data model
• Applying the concepts of the chosen data model
• Translating these requirements into a conceptual schema of the
database.
• A fully developed conceptual schema indicates the functional
requirements of the enterprise.
 Describe the kinds of operations (or transactions) that will be
performed on the data.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.4 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Design Phases (Cont.)

 Final Phase -- Moving from an abstract data model to the implementation

of the database
• Logical Design – Deciding on the database schema.
 Database design requires that we find a “good” collection of
relation schemas.
 Business decision – What attributes should we record in the
database?
 Computer Science decision – What relation schemas should we
have and how should the attributes be distributed among the
various relation schemas?
• Physical Design – Deciding on the physical layout of the database

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.5 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Design Alternatives

 In designing a database schema, we must ensure that we

avoid two major pitfalls:
• Redundancy: a bad design may result in repeat
information.
 Redundant representation of information may lead
to data inconsistency among the various copies of
information
• Incompleteness: a bad design may make certain
aspects of the enterprise difficult or impossible to
model.
 Avoiding bad designs is not enough. There may be a
large number of good designs from which we must
choose.
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.6 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Design Approaches
 Entity Relationship Model (covered in this chapter)
• Models an enterprise as a collection of entities and
relationships
 Entity: a “thing” or “object” in the enterprise that is
distinguishable from other objects
• Described by a set of attributes
 Relationship: an association among several entities

• Represented diagrammatically by an entity-relationship

diagram:
 Normalization Theory (Chapter 7)
• Formalize what designs are bad, and test for them

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.7 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 The Entity-Relationship Model

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.8 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 ER model -- Database Modeling

 The ER data model was developed to facilitate database

design by allowing specification of an enterprise schema
that represents the overall logical structure of a database.
 The ER data model employs three basic concepts:
• entity sets,
• relationship sets,
• attributes.
 The ER model also has an associated diagrammatic
representation, the ER diagram, which can express the
overall logical structure of a database graphically.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.9 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Entity Sets

 An entity is an object that exists and is distinguishable from

other objects.
• Example: specific person, company, event, plant
 An entity set is a set of entities of the same type that share
the same properties.
• Example: set of all persons, companies, trees, holidays
 An entity is represented by a set of attributes; i.e., descriptive
properties possessed by all members of an entity set.
• Example:
instructor = (ID, name, salary )
course= (course_id, title, credits)
 A subset of the attributes form a primary key of the entity
set; i.e., uniquely identifying each member of the set.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.10 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Entity Sets -- instructor and student

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.11 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Entity sets in ER Diagram

 Entity sets can be represented graphically as

follows:
• Rectangles represent entity sets.
• Attributes listed inside entity rectangle
• Underline indicates primary key attributes

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.12 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relationship Sets

 A relationship is an association among several entities

Example:
44553 (Peltier) advisor 22222 (Einstein)
student entity relationship set instructor entity
 A relationship set is a 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

• Example:
(44553,22222)  advisor

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.13 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relationship Sets (Cont.)

 Example: we define the relationship set advisor to

denote the associations between students and the
instructors who act as their advisors.
 Pictorially, we draw a line between related entities.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.14 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Relationship Sets via ER Diagrams

 Diamonds represent relationship sets.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.15 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relationship Sets (Cont.)
 An attribute can also be associated with a relationship
set.
 For instance, the advisor relationship set between entity
sets instructor and student may have the attribute date
which tracks when the student started being associated
with the advisor

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.16 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Relationship Sets with Attributes

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.17 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Roles

 Entity sets of a relationship need not be distinct

• Each occurrence of an entity set plays a “role” in the
relationship
 The labels “course_id” and “prereq_id” are called roles.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.18 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 the same entity set participates in a relationship set more than once,
in different roles. In this type of relationship set, sometimes called a
recursive relationship set, explicit role names are necessary to
specify how an entity participates in a relationship instance

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.19 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Degree of a Relationship Set

 Binary relationship
• involve two entity sets (or degree two).
• most relationship sets in a database system are
binary.
 Relationships between more than two entity sets are rare.
Most relationships are binary.
 Example: students work on research projects under the
guidance of an instructor.
• relationship proj_guide is a ternary relationship
between instructor, student, and project

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.20 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Non-binary Relationship Sets

 Most relationship sets are binary

 There are occasions when it is more convenient to
represent relationships as non-binary.
 E-R Diagram with a Ternary Relationship

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.21 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Complex Attributes

 Attribute types:
• Simple and composite attributes.
• Single-valued and multivalued attributes
 Example: multivalued attribute: phone_numbers

• Derived attributes
 Can be computed from other attributes
 Example: age, given date_of_birth
 Domain – the set of permitted values for each
attribute

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.22 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.23 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Composite Attributes

 Composite attributes allow us to divided attributes into

subparts (other attributes).

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.24 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Complex Attributes in ER Diagram

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.25 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Mapping Cardinality Constraints

 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

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.26 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Mapping Cardinalities

One to one One to many

Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any

elements in the other set

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.27 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Mapping Cardinalities

Many to one Many to many

Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any

elements in the other set

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.28 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Cardinality Constraints in ER Diagram

 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.

 One-to-one relationship between an instructor and a student :

• A student is associated with at most one instructor via the
relationship advisor

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.29 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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,

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.30 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Many-to-One Relationships

 In a many-to-one relationship between an instructor and

a student,
• an instructor is associated with at most one student
via advisor,
• and a student is associated with several (including 0)
instructors via advisor

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.31 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Many-to-Many Relationship

 An instructor is associated with several (possibly 0)

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

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.32 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.33 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Total and Partial Participation
 Total participation (indicated by double line): every entity in the
entity set participates in at least one relationship in the
relationship set

participation of student in advisor relation is total

 every student must have an associated instructor
 Partial participation: some entities may not participate in any
relationship in the relationship set
• Example: participation of instructor in advisor is partial

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.34 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Notation for Expressing More Complex Constraints
 A line may have an associated minimum and maximum cardinality,
shown in the form l..h, where l is the minimum and h the maximum
cardinality
• A minimum value of 1 indicates total participation.
• A maximum value of 1 indicates that the entity participates in
at most one relationship
• A maximum value of * indicates no limit.
 Example

• Instructor can advise 0 or more students. A student must have 1

advisor; cannot have multiple advisors

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.35 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Primary Key

 Primary keys provide a way to specify how entities and

relations are distinguished.
• Entity sets
• Relationship sets.
• Weak entity sets

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.37 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Primary key for Entity Sets

By definition, individual entities are distinct.

 From database perspective, the differences among
them must be expressed in terms of their attributes.
 The values of the attribute of an entity must be such
that they can uniquely identify the entity.
• No two entities in an entity set are allowed to have
exactly the same value for all attributes.
 A key for an entity is a set of attributes that suffice to
distinguish entities from each other

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.38 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Primary Key for Relationship Sets
 To distinguish among the various relationships of a relationship
set we use the individual primary keys of the entities in the
relationship set.
• Let R be a relationship set involving entity sets E1, E2, .. En
• The primary key for R is consists of the union of the
primary keys of entity sets E1, E2, ..En
• If the relationship set R has attributes a1, a2, .., am
associated with it, then the primary key of R also includes
the attributes a1, a2, .., am
 Example: relationship set “advisor”.
• The primary key consists of instructor.ID and student.ID
 The choice of the primary key for a relationship set depends on
the mapping cardinality of the relationship set.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.39 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Choice of Primary key for Binary Relationship

 Many-to-Many relationships. The preceding union of the

primary keys is a minimal superkey and is chosen as the
primary key.
 One-to-Many relationships/ Many-to-one relationships The
primary key of the “Many” side is a minimal superkey and
is used as the primary key.
 One-to-one relationships. The primary key of either one of
the participating entity sets forms a minimal superkey, and
either one can be chosen as the primary key.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.40 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Weak Entity Sets
 A weak entity set is one whose existence is dependent on
another entity, called its identifying entity.
 Consider a section entity, which is uniquely identified by a
course_id, semester, year, and sec_id.
 Suppose we create a relationship set sec_course between
entity sets section and course.
 Note that the information in sec_course is redundant, since
section already has an attribute course_id, which identifies the
course with which the section is related.
 One option to deal with this redundancy is to get rid of the
relationship sec_course; however, by doing so the relationship
between section and course becomes implicit in an attribute,
which is not desirable.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.41 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Weak Entity Sets (Cont.)
 An alternative way to deal with this redundancy is to not store the
attribute course_id in the section entity and to only store the
remaining attributes section_id, year, and semester.
• However, the entity set section then does not have enough
attributes to identify a particular section entity uniquely
 To deal with this problem, we treat the relationship sec_course
as a special relationship that provides extra information, in this
case, the course_id, required to identify section entities uniquely.
 Instead of associating a primary key with a weak entity, we use
the identifying entity, along with extra attributes called
discriminator to uniquely identify a weak entity.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.42 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Weak Entity Sets (Cont.)

 An entity set that is not a weak entity set is termed a strong

entity set.
 Every weak entity must be associated with an identifying
entity; that is, the weak entity set is said to be existence
dependent on the identifying entity set.
 The identifying entity set is said to own the weak entity set
that it identifies.
 The relationship associating the weak entity set with the
identifying entity set is called the identifying relationship.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.43 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Expressing Weak Entity Sets

 In E-R diagrams, a weak entity set is depicted via a double

rectangle.
 We underline the discriminator of a weak entity set with a
dashed line.
 The relationship set connecting the weak entity set to the
identifying strong entity set is depicted by a double diamond.
 Primary key for section – (course_id, sec_id, semester, year)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.44 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.45 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Redundant Attributes
 Suppose we have entity sets:
• student, with attributes: ID, name, tot_cred, dept_name
• department, with attributes: dept_name, building, budget
 We model the fact that each student has an associated department using
a relationship set stud_dept
 The attribute dept_name in student below replicates information present
in the relationship and is therefore redundant and needs to be removed.
 BUT: when converting back to tables, in some cases the attribute gets
reintroduced, as we will see later.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.46 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.47 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.48 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 E-R Diagram for a University Enterprise

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.49 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
  This E-R diagram is equivalent to the textual description of the
university E-R model but with several additional constraints, and
section now being a weak entity.
 we have a constraint that each instructor must have exactly one
associated department.
 As a result, there is a double line between instructor and
inst_dept, indicating total participation of instructor in inst_dept;
 We shall show how this E-R diagram can be used to derive the
various relation schemas we use.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.50 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Reduction to Relation Schemas

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.51 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Reduction to Relation Schemas
 How an E-R schema can be represented by relation
schemas? How constraints arising from the E-R design can
be mapped to constraints on relation schemas?
 Entity sets and relationship sets can be expressed
uniformly as relation schemas that represent the contents
of the database.
 A database which conforms to an E-R diagram can be
represented by a collection of schemas.
 For each entity set and relationship set there is a unique
schema that is assigned the name of the corresponding
entity set or relationship set.
 Each schema has a number of columns (generally
corresponding to attributes), which have unique names.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.52 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representation of Strong Entity Sets with
Simple Attributes
 For schemas derived from strong entity sets, the
primary key of the entity set serves as the primary key
of the resulting schema
 A strong entity set reduces to a schema with the same
attributes. The schemas derived from strong entity sets
are
 student(ID, name, tot_cred)
classroom (building, room number, capacity)
department (dept_name, building, budget)
course (course_id, title, credits)
instructor (ID, name, salary)
student (ID, name, tot cred)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.53 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 E-R Diagram for a University Enterprise

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.54 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representation of Entity Sets with Complex Attributes

 Composite attributes are flattened out by

creating a separate attribute for each
component attribute
 Ignoring multivalued attributes, extended
instructor schema is
• instructor(ID, first_name, middle_initial,
last_name, street_number, street_name,

apt_number, city, state, zip_code,

date_of_birth)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.55 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representation of Entity Sets with Multivalued Attributes
 A multivalued attribute M of an entity E is represented by a separate
schema EM
 Schema EM has attributes corresponding to the primary key of E
and an attribute corresponding to multivalued attribute M
 Example: Multivalued attribute phone_number of instructor is
represented by a schema:
instructor_phone ( ID, phone_number)
 We create a primary key of the relation schema consisting of all
attributes of the schema
 Each value of the multivalued attribute maps to a separate tuple of
the relation on schema EM
• For example, an instructor entity with primary key 22222 and
phone numbers 456-7890 and 123-4567 maps to two tuples:
(22222, 456-7890) and (22222, 123-4567)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.56 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
  The foreign-key constraint on the instructor_phone relation
would be that attribute ID references the instructor
relation.

 Here, time_slot_ id is the primary key of the time_slot

entity set and there is a single multivalued attribute that
happens also to be composite.
time_slot (time_slot_id, day, start time, end time)

 There cannot be two meetings of a class that start at the

same time of the same day-of the-week but end at
different times;

 based on this constraint, end time has been omitted from

the primary key of the time slot schema.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.57 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representation of Weak Entity Sets
 For schemas derived from a weak entity set, the combination of
the primary key of the strong entity set and the discriminator of
the weak entity set serves as the primary key of the schema.

 We also create a foreign-key constraint on the relation A,

specifying that the attributes b1, b2, . . . , bn reference the
primary key of the relation B.

 The foreign key constraint ensures that for each tuple

representing a weak entity, there is a corresponding tuple
representing the corresponding strong entity.

Eg: section (course id, sec id, semester, year)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.58 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Relationship Sets

 A many-to-many relationship set is represented as

a schema with attributes for the primary keys of the
two participating entity sets, and any descriptive
attributes of the relationship set.
 Example: schema for relationship set advisor

advisor = (s_id, i_id)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.59 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
  For a binary one-to-one relationship set, the
primary key of either entity set can be chosen as
the primary key.
 The choice can be made arbitrarily.
 For a binary many-to-one or one-to-many
relationship set, the primary key of the entity set
on the “many” side of the relationship set serves
as the primary key.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.60 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Combination of Schemas
 Suppose further that the participation of A in the relationship
is total,,
 Then we can combine the schemas A and AB to form a
single schema consisting of the union of attributes of both
schemas.
 The primary key of the combined schema is the primary key
of the entity set into whose schema the relationship set
schema was merged.
 relations in the E-R diagram that satisfy the above criteria:

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.61 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
  Inst_dept. :: The resulting instructor schema consists of
the attributes {ID, name, dept_name, salary}.
 Stud_dept :: The resulting student schema consists of the
attributes {ID,name, dept_name, tot_cred}.
 Course_dept: The resulting course schema consists of the
attributes {course,id, title, dept_name, credits}.
 Sec_class:: The resulting section schema consists of the
attributes {course id, sec_id, semester, year, building,
room_number}.
 Sec_ time_slot:: The resulting section schema
consists of the attributes {course_id, sec_id, semester, year,
building, room_number, time_slot_id}.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.62 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 E-R Diagram for a University Enterprise

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.63 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Extended E-R Features

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.67 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
  specialization
 generalization
 higher- and lower-level entity sets
 attribute inheritance
 aggregation.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.68 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Specialization

 The process of designating subgroupings within an entity

set is called specialization.
 Top-down design process; we designate sub-groupings within
an entity set that are distinctive from other entities in the set.
 These sub-groupings become lower-level entity sets that have
attributes or participate in relationships that do not apply to the
higher-level entity set.
 Depicted by a triangle component labeled ISA (e.g., instructor
“is a” person).
 Attribute inheritance – a lower-level entity set inherits all the
attributes and relationship participation of the higher-level
entity set to which it is linked.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.69 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Specialization Example
 Overlapping – employee and student
 Disjoint – instructor and secretary
 Total and partial

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.70 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Specialization via Schemas

 Method 1:
• Form a schema for the higher-level entity
• Form a schema for each lower-level entity set, include primary key
of higher-level entity set and local attributes

• Drawback: getting information about, an employee requires

accessing two relations, the one corresponding to the low-level
schema and the one corresponding to the high-level schema

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.71 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Specialization as Schemas (Cont.)

 Method 2:
• Form a schema for each entity set with all local and
inherited attributes

• Drawback: name, street and city may be stored

redundantly for people who are both students and
employees

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.72 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Generalization

 A bottom-up design process – combine a number of

entity sets that share the same features into a higher-
level entity set.
 Specialization and generalization are simple inversions
of each other; they are represented in an E-R diagram in
the same way.
 The terms specialization and generalization are used
interchangeably.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.73 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Completeness constraint

 Completeness constraint -- 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 a
generalization.
• total: an entity must belong to one of the lower-level
entity sets
• partial: an entity need not belong to one of the
lower-level entity sets

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.74 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Completeness constraint (Cont.)

 Partial generalization is the default.

 We can specify total generalization in an ER diagram by adding
the keyword total in the diagram and drawing a dashed line from
the keyword to the corresponding hollow arrow-head to which it
applies (for a total generalization), or to the set of hollow arrow-
heads to which it applies (for an overlapping generalization).
 The student generalization is total: All student entities must be
either graduate or undergraduate. Because the higher-level entity
set arrived at through generalization is generally composed of
only those entities in the lower-level entity sets, the completeness
constraint for a generalized higher-level entity set is usually total

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.75 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Aggregation

 Consider the ternary relationship proj_guide, which we saw earlier

 Suppose we want to record evaluations of a student by a guide on a
project

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.76 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Aggregation (Cont.)

 Relationship sets eval_for and proj_guide represent overlapping

information
• Every eval_for relationship corresponds to a proj_guide relationship
• However, some proj_guide relationships may not correspond to any
eval_for relationships
 So we can’t discard the proj_guide relationship
 Eliminate this redundancy via aggregation
• Treat relationship as an abstract entity
• Allows relationships between relationships
• Abstraction of relationship into new entity
 Aggregation is an abstraction through which relationships are treated
as higher-level entities.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.77 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Aggregation (Cont.)

 Eliminate this redundancy via aggregation without introducing redundancy,

the following diagram represents:
• A student is guided by a particular instructor on a particular project
• A student, instructor, project combination may have an associated
evaluation

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.78 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Reduction to Relational Schemas

 To represent aggregation, create a schema containing

• Primary key of the aggregated relationship,
• The primary key of the associated entity set
• Any descriptive attributes
 In our example:
• The schema eval_for is:
eval_for (s_ID, project_id, i_ID, evaluation_id)
• The schema proj_guide is redundant.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.79 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Specialization via Schemas

 Method 1:
• Form a schema for the higher-level entity
• Form a schema for each lower-level entity set, include primary key
of higher-level entity set and local attributes

• Drawback: getting information about, an employee requires

accessing two relations, the one corresponding to the low-level
schema and the one corresponding to the high-level schema

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.80 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Representing Specialization as Schemas (Cont.)

 Method 2:
• Form a schema for each entity set with all local and
inherited attributes

• Drawback: name, street and city may be stored

redundantly for people who are both students and
employees

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.81 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Design Issues

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.82 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Common Mistakes in E-R Diagrams

 Example of erroneous E-R diagrams

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.83 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Common Mistakes in E-R Diagrams (Cont.)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.84 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Entities vs. Attributes

 Use of entity sets vs. attributes

 Use of phone as an entity allows extra information about phone numbers

(plus multiple phone numbers)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.85 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Entities vs. Relationship sets

 Use of entity sets vs. relationship sets

Possible guideline is to designate a relationship set to describe
an action that occurs between entities

 Placement of relationship attributes

For example, attribute date as attribute of advisor or as attribute

of student

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.86 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Binary Vs. Non-Binary Relationships

 Although it is possible to replace any non-binary (n-ary, for n > 2)

relationship set by a number of distinct binary relationship sets, a n-ary
relationship set shows more clearly that several entities participate in a
single relationship.
 Some relationships that appear to be non-binary may be better
represented using binary relationships
• For example, a ternary relationship parents, relating a child to his/her
father and mother, is best replaced by two binary relationships,
father and mother
 Using two binary relationships allows partial information (e.g.,
only mother being known)
• But there are some relationships that are naturally non-binary
 Example: proj_guide

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.87 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 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 an identifying attribute for E and 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

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.88 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Converting Non-Binary Relationships (Cont.)

 Also need to translate constraints

• Translating all constraints may not be possible
• There may be instances in the translated schema that
cannot correspond to any instance of R
 Exercise: add constraints to the relationships RA, RB and RC to
ensure that a newly created entity corresponds to exactly one
entity in each of entity sets A, B and C
• We can avoid creating an identifying attribute by making E a weak
entity set (described shortly) identified by the three relationship sets

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.89 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 E-R 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 specialization/generalization – contributes to modularity in the
design.
 The use of aggregation – can treat the aggregate entity set as a single
unit without concern for the details of its internal structure.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.90 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Summary of Symbols Used in E-R Notation

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.91 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Symbols Used in E-R Notation (Cont.)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.92 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Alternative ER Notations

 Chen, IDE1FX, …

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.93 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Alternative ER Notations

Chen IDE1FX (Crows feet notation)

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.94 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 UML

 UML: Unified Modeling Language

 UML has many components to graphically model different aspects of an
entire software system
 UML Class Diagrams correspond to E-R Diagram, but several
differences.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.95 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 ER vs. UML Class Diagrams

* Note reversal of position in cardinality constraint depiction

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.96 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 ER vs. UML Class Diagrams

ER Diagram Notation Equivalent in UML

* Generalization can use merged or separate arrows independent

of disjoint/overlapping

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.97 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 UML Class Diagrams (Cont.)

 Binary relationship sets are represented in UML by just drawing a line

connecting the entity sets. The relationship set name is written adjacent
to the line.
 The role played by an entity set in a relationship set may also be
specified by writing the role name on the line, adjacent to the entity set.
 The relationship set name may alternatively be written in a box, along
with attributes of the relationship set, and the box is connected, using a
dotted line, to the line depicting the relationship set.

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.98 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 ER vs. UML Class Diagrams

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.99 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 Other Aspects of Database Design

 Functional Requirements
 Data Flow, Workflow
 Schema Evolution

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.100 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
 End of Chapter 6

Database System Concepts - 7th Edition 6.101 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan