Chapter 4

Database Design I:
The Entity-Relationship Model

Database Design
Goal: specification of database schema Methodology:
Use E-R model to get a high-level graphical view of essential components of enterprise and how they are related Convert E-R diagram to DDL

E-R Model: enterprise is viewed as a set of

Entities Relationships among entities
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Entities
Entity: an object that is involved in the enterprise
Ex: John, CSCI4333

Entity Type: set of similar objects

Ex: students, courses

Attribute: describes one aspect of an entity type

Ex: name, maximum enrollment
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Entity Type
Entity type described by set of attributes
Person: Id, Name, Address, Hobbies

Domain: possible values of an attribute

Value can be a set (in contrast to relational model)
(111111, John, 123 Main St, {stamps, coins})

Key: minimum set of attributes that uniquely identifies an entity (candidate key) Entity Schema: entity type name, attributes (and associated domain), key constraints
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Entity Type (cont)

Graphical Representation in E-R diagram:

Set valued
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Relationships
Relationship: relates two or more entities
John majors in Computer Science

Relationship Type: set of similar relationships

Student (entity type) related to Department (entity type) by MajorsIn (relationship type).

Distinction:
relation (relational model) - set of tuples relationship (E-R Model) describes relationship between entities of an enterprise Both entity types and relationship types (E-R model) may be represented as relations (in the relational model)
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Attributes and Roles

Attribute of a relationship type describes the relationship
e.g., John majors in CS since 2000
John and CS are related 2000 describes relationship - value of SINCE attribute of MajorsIn relationship type

Role of a relationship type names one of the related entities

e.g., John is value of Student role, CS value of Department role of MajorsIn relationship type (John, CS; 2000) describes a relationship
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Relationship Type
Described by set of attributes and roles
e.g., MajorsIn: Student, Department, Since Here we have used as the role name (Student) the name of the entity type (Student) of the participant in the relationship, but ...

Roles
Problem: relationship can relate elements of same entity type
e.g., ReportsTo relationship type relates two elements of Employee entity type:
Bob reports to Mary since 2000

We do not have distinct names for the roles It is not clear who reports to whom

Roles (cont)
Solution: role name of relationship type need not be same as name of entity type from which participants are drawn
ReportsTo has roles Subordinate and Supervisor and attribute Since Values of Subordinate and Supervisor both drawn from entity type Employee

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Schema of a Relationship Type

Role names, Ri, and their corresponding entity sets. Roles must be single valued (number of roles = degree of relationship) Attribute names, Aj, and their corresponding domains. Attributes may be set valued Key: Minimum set of roles and attributes that uniquely identify a relationship Relationship: <e1, en; a1, ak>
ei is an entity, a value from Ris entity set aj is a set of attribute values with elements from domain of Aj
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Graphical Representation
Roles are edges labeled with role names (omitted if role name = name of entity set). Most attributes have been omitted.

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Single-role Key Constraint

If, for a particular participant entity type, each entity participates in at most one relationship, corresponding role is a key of relationship type
E.g., Professor role is unique in WorksIn

Representation in E-R diagram: arrow

Professor WorksIn Department
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Entity Type Hierarchies

One entity type might be subtype of another
Freshman is a subtype of Student

A relationship exists between a Freshman entity and the corresponding Student entity
e.g., Freshman John is related to Student John

This relationship is called IsA

Freshman IsA Student The two entities related by IsA are always descriptions of the same real-world object
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IsA
Student
Represents 4 relationship types

IsA

Freshman

Sophmore

Junior

Senior

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Properties of IsA
Inheritance - Attributes of supertype apply to subtype.
E.g., GPA attribute of Student applies to Freshman Subtype inherits all attributes of supertype. Key of supertype is key of subtype

Transitivity - Hierarchy of IsA

Student is subtype of Person, Freshman is subtype of Student, so Freshman is also a subtype of Student
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Advantages of IsA
Can create a more concise and readable E-R diagram
Attributes common to different entity sets need not be repeated They can be grouped in one place as attributes of supertype Attributes of (sibling) subtypes can be different

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IsA Hierarchy - Example

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Constraints on Type Hierarchies

Might have associated constraints:
Covering constraint: Union of subtype entities is equal to set of supertype entities
Employee is either a secretary or a technician (or both)

Disjointness constraint: Sets of subtype entities are disjoint from one another
Freshman, Sophomore, Junior, Senior are disjoint set

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Participation Constraint
If every entity participates in at least one relationship, a participation constraint holds:
A participation constraint of entity type E having role in relationship type R states that for e in E there is an r in R such that (r) = e. e.g., every professor works in at least one department
Reprsentation in E-R

Professor

WorksIn

Department

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Participation and Key Constraint

If every entity participates in exactly one relationship, both a participation and a key constraint hold:
e.g., every professor works in exactly one department
E-R representation: thick line

Professor

WorksIn

Department
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More on E-R Notation

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Cardinality Constraints

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Cardinality Constraints

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Part-of Relationship (non-exclusive)

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Part-of Relationship (exclusive)

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Representation of Entity Types in the Relational Model

An entity type corresponds to a relation Relations attributes = entity types attributes
Problem: entity type can have set valued attributes, e.g., Person: Id, Name, Address, Hobbies Solution: Use several rows to represent a single entity
(111111, John, 123 Main St, stamps) (111111, John, 123 Main St, coins)

Problems with this solution:

Redundancy Key of entity type (Id) not key of relation Hence, the resulting relation must be further transformed (Chapter 6)
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Representation of Relationship Types in the Relational Model

Typically, a relationship becomes a relation in the relational model Attributes of the corresponding relation are Attributes of relationship type For each role, the primary key of the entity type associated with that role Example: CrsCode Enroll RoomNo DeptId Name

SectNo

S2000Courses

Teaching TAs

Professor Id

S2000Courses (CrsCode, SectNo, Enroll) Professor (Id, DeptId, Name) Teaching (CrsCode, SecNo, Id, RoomNo, TAs)
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Representation of Relationship Types in the Relational Model

Candidate key of corresponding table = candidate key of relation
Except when there are set valued attributes Example: Teaching (CrsCode, SectNo, Id, RoomNo, TAs)
Key of relationship type = (CrsCode, SectNo) Key of relation = (CrsCode, SectNo, TAs) CrsCode SectNo Id RoomNo TAs
Set valued

CSE305 CSE305

1 1

1234 Hum 22 1234 Hum 22

Joe Mary
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Representation in SQL
Each role of relationship type produces a foreign key in corresponding relation
Foreign key references table corresponding to entity type from which role values are drawn

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Example 1
Since Professor WorksIn Status Department

CREATE TABLE WorksIn ( Since DATE, -- attribute Status CHAR (10), -- attribute ProfId INTEGER, -- role (key of Professor) DeptId CHAR (4), -- role (key of Department) PRIMARY KEY (ProfId), -- since a professor works in at most one department FOREIGN KEY (ProfId) REFERENCES Professor (Id), FOREIGN KEY (DeptId) REFERENCES Department )
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Example 2
Date Project Price

Sold

Part

Supplier
CREATE TABLE Sold ( Price INTEGER, -- attribute Date DATE, -- attribute ProjId INTEGER, -- role SupplierId INTEGER, -- role PartNumber INTEGER, -- role PRIMARY KEY (ProjId, SupplierId, PartNumber, Date), FOREIGN KEY (ProjId) REFERENCES Project, FOREIGN KEY (SupplierId) REFERENCES Supplier (Id), FOREIGN KEY (PartNumber) REFERENCES Part (Number) )
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Representation of Single Role Key Constraints in the Relational Model Relational model representation: key of the relation corresponding to the entity type is key of the relation corresponding to the relationship type
Id is primary key of Professor; ProfId is key of WorksIn. Professor 4100 does not participate in the relationship. Cannot use foreign key in Professor to refer to WorksIn since some professors may not work in any dept. (But ProfId is a foreign key in WorksIn that refers to Professor.) Professor
Id

WorksIn

Department
ProfId
Key

1123 4100 3216

Professor

1123 3216
WorksIn

CSE AMS
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Representing Type Hierarchies in the Relational Model

Supertypes and subtypes can be realized as separate relations
Need a way of identifying subtype entity with its (unique) related supertype entity
Choose a candidate key and make it an attribute of all entity types in hierarchy

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Type Hierarchies and the Relational Model

Translated by adding the primary key of supertype to all subtypes. Plus foreign key from subtypes to the supertype.
Id attribs0

Student

Id attribs1

Id

attribs2

Id

attribs3

Id

attribs4

Freshman

Sophmore

Junior

Senior
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FOREIGN KEY Id REFERENCES Student in Freshman, Sophomore, Sunior, Senior

Type Hierarchies and the Relational Model

Redundancy eliminated if IsA is not disjoint

For individuals who are both employees and students, Name and DOB are stored only once
Person
SSN 1234 Name DOB Mary 1950

Employee
SSN Department 1234 Accounting Salary 35000

Student
SSN GPA StartDate 1234 3.5 1997

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Type Hierarchies and the Relational Model

Other representations are possible in special cases, such as when all subtypes are disjoint See in the book

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Representing Participation Constraints in the Relational Model

Professor WorksIn Department

Inclusion dependency: Every professor works in at least one dept. in the relational model: (easy) Professor (Id) references WorksIn (ProfId)
in SQL: Simple case: If ProfId is a key in WorksIn (i.e., every professor works in exactly one department) then it is easy:
FOREIGN KEY Id REFERENCES WorksIn (ProfId)

General case ProfId is not a key in WorksIn, so cant use foreign key constraint (not so easy):
CREATE ASSERTION ProfsInDepts CHECK ( NOT EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM Professor P WHERE NOT EXISTS ( SELECT * FROM WorksIn W WHERE P.Id = W.ProfId ) ) )

Select those professors that do not work

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Representing Participation Constraint in the Relational Model

Example (cant use foreign key in Professor if ProfId is not a candidate key in WorksIn)
Id ProfId

1123 4100 3216

1123 1123 4100 3216

CSE AMS ECO AMS

Professor
ProfId not a

WorksIn

candidate key

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Representing Participation and Key Constraint in SQL

If both participation and key constraints apply, use foreign key constraint in entity table (but beware: if candidate key in entity table is not primary, presence of nulls violates participation constraint).
CREATE TABLE Professor ( Id INTEGER, PRIMARY KEY (Id), -- Id cant be null FOREIGN KEY (Id) REFERENCES WorksIn (ProfId) --all professors participate )

Professor

WorksIn

Department
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Participation and Key Constraint in the Relational Model

Example:
Id ProfId

xxxxxx 1123 yyyyyy 4100 zzzzzzz 3216

Professor

1123 4100 3216

CSE ECO AMS

WorksIn

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Participation and Key Constraint in Relational Model (again)

Alternative solution if both key and participation constraints apply: merge the tables representing the entity and relationship sets
Since there is a 1-1 and onto relationship between the rows of the entity set and the relationship sets, might as well put all the attributes in one table
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Participation and Key Constraint in Relational Model

Example
Name Id DeptId

xxxxxxx yyyyyyy zzzzzzzz

1123 4100 3216

CSE ECO AMS

Prof_WorksIn

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Entity or Attribute?
Sometimes information can be represented as either an entity or an attribute.
Student Semester Grade Course
Semester Student Transcript Grade Course
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Transcript

Appropriate if Semester has attributes

(next slide)

Entity or Relationship?

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(Non-) Equivalence of Diagrams

Transformations between binary and ternary relationships.
Date

Part Sold

Project
Price

Supplier

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