Chapter 2: Entity-Relationship Model

Entity Sets Relationship Sets Design Issues Mapping Constraints Keys E-R Diagram Extended E-R Features Design of an E-R Database Schema Reduction of an E-R Schema to Tables

Entity Relationship Model

A database can be modeled as: a collection of entities and Relationship among those entities. An entity is an object that exists and is distinguishable from other objects. Example: specific person, company, event, plant Entities have attributes Example: people have names and addresses 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

Entity set
Eg:CUSTOMER LOAN

In E-R model an Entity is represented by a Rectangle

CUSTOMER

LOAN

An entity is represented by a set of attributes, that is descriptive properties possessed by all members of an entity set. Example: customer = (customer-id, customer-name, customer-street, customer-city) loan = (loan-number, amount) Domain the set of permitted values for each attribute In E-R diagram an Attribute is represented by Ellipse
Customer -Id Customer -Name Customer -Street

Attributes

LoanNumber

Amount

LOAN CUSTOMER
Customer -City

Attribute types
Simple and composite attributes Simple attributes are atomic, further decomposition is not possible. eg:- Age Composite attributes can be further decomposed into component attributes. Composite attributes help us to group together related attributes , making the modeling cleaner.

Single-valued and multi-valued attributes The attributes that have at most one value for a specific entity then it is called single valued attributes. Eg:- Age There may be instances where an attribute has set of values for a specific entity. Such attribute that can have more than one value for a specific entity is called Multi valued Attribute. Eg:- Phone- numbers Stored and derived Attributes The value of derived attribute can be derived from an existing attribute (Stored Attribute) Eg:- The age (derived Attribute) can be derived from Date of birth (Stored Attribute)

Ellipses represent attributes Double ellipses represent multi valued attributes. (phone-number) Dashed ellipses denote derived attributes (Age) Composite attributes are represented by a hierarchy of attributes

E-R Diagram With Composite, Multivalued, and Derived Attributes

Relationship Sets
A relationship is an association among several entities Suppose a customer Hayes have a loan of L -15. Hayes is associated with L-15 ( Borrower ) Example: Hayes Borrower L-15 A relationship set is a set of relationship of the same type. Formally it 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, E1,E2 are called participation Entities. Example: (Hayes, L-15) Borrower

In E-R diagram A relationship can be expressed as diamond.

Relationship

Relationship Sets (Cont.)

An attribute can also be property of a relationship set. For instance, the depositor relationship set between entity sets customer and account may have the attribute accessdate

Degree of a Relationship Set

Refers to number of entity sets that participate in a relationship set. Relationship sets that involve two entity sets are binary (or degree two). Generally, most relationship sets in a database system are binary. Relationship sets may involve more than two entity sets.
E.g. Suppose employees of a bank may have jobs (responsibilities) at multiple branches, with different jobs at different branches. Then there is a ternary relationship set between entity sets employee, job and branch

Relationships between more than two entity sets are rare. Most relationships are binary. (More on this later.)

Roles
The function that an entity plays in a relationship is called that entitys role. The participating entities in a relationship set are generally distinct , roles are implicit and are not usually specified. Entity sets of a relationship need not be distinct. i.e. same entity set participates more than once in a relationship (recursive relation ship). In that case it is necessary to specify how an entity participate (role) in a relationship The labels manager and worker are called roles; they specify how employee entities interact via the works-for relationship set. Roles are indicated in E-R diagrams by labeling the lines that connect diamonds to rectangles. Role labels are optional, and are used to clarify semantics of the relationship

Mapping Cardinalities or Cardinalities Ratio

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

For a binary relationship set R between entity set A and B , The mapping cardinality must be one of the following 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 One to Many :- An entity in A is associated with any number of entities in B and an entity in B is Associated with at most one entity in A

One to One

One to Many

Many to One:- An entity in A is associated with at most one entity in B and an entity in B is Associated with any number of entities in A Many to Many :- An entity in A is associated with any number of entities in B and an entity in B is Associated with any number of entities in A

Many to One

Many to Many

Cardinality Constraints in E-R 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. E.g.: One-to-one relationship:
A customer is associated with at most one loan via the relationship borrower A loan is associated with at most one customer via borrower

In a many-to-one relationship a loan is associated with several (including 0) customers via borrower, a customer is associated with at most one loan via borrower

In the one-to-many relationship a loan is associated with at most one customer via borrower, a customer is associated with several (including 0) loans via borrower

Many-To-Many Relationship

A customer is associated with several (possibly 0) loans via borrower A loan is associated with several (possibly 0) customers via borrower

Existence Dependencies
The existence of an entity X depends on the existence of another entity Y , then X is said to be Existence depends on Y Y Dominant Entity X subordinate Entity. If Y is deleted , that should automatically delete X also E.g.:- The existence of payment details depends on Loan The participation of an entity in a relationship is closely related to Existence dependency.

Participation of an Entity Set

Total participation (indicated by double line): every entity in the entity set participates in at least one relationship in the relationship set E.g. participation of loan in borrower is total every loan must have a customer associated to it via borrower Partial participation: some entities may not participate in any relationship in the relationship set E.g. participation of customer in borrower is partial

Keys
A super key of an entity set is a set of one or more attributes whose values uniquely determine each entity. E.g. {Social-Security} If K is a super key then the superset of K is also super key The concepts of Super key is not sufficient because it may contain extraneous attributes A candidate key of an entity set is a minimal super key, a super key in which no proper subset is a super key. Customer-id is candidate key of customer account-number is candidate key of account Although several candidate keys may exist, one of the candidate keys is selected to be the primary key. The term Primary key is used to denote a candidate key that is chosen by the designer as the principle means of identifying entities within an entity set

E-R Diagrams

Rectangles represent entity sets. Diamonds represent relationship sets. Lines link attributes to entity sets and entity sets to relationship sets. Ellipses represent attributes Double ellipses represent multivalued attributes. Dashed ellipses denote derived attributes.

Underline indicates primary key attributes

Weak Entity Sets

An entity set that does not have a primary key is referred to as a weak entity set. The existence of a weak entity set depends on the existence of a identifying entity set it must relate to the identifying entity set via a total, one-to-many relationship set from the identifying to the weak entity set Identifying relationship depicted using a double diamond The discriminator (or partial key) of a weak entity set is the set of attributes that distinguishes among all the entities of a weak entity set. The primary key of a weak entity set is formed by the primary key of the strong entity set on which the weak entity set is existence dependent, plus the weak entity sets discriminator.

Weak Entity Sets (Cont.)

We depict a weak entity set by double rectangles. We underline the discriminator of a weak entity set with a dashed line. payment-number discriminator of the payment entity set Primary key for payment (loan-number, payment-number)

More Weak Entity Set Examples

In a university, a course is a strong entity and a course-offering can be modeled as a weak entity The discriminator of course-offering would be semester (including year) and section-number (if there is more than one section) If we model course-offering as a strong entity we would model course-number as an attribute. Then the relationship with course would be implicit in the course-number attribute

E-R Diagram with a Ternary Relationship

Binary Vs. Non-Binary Relationships

Some relationships that appear to be non-binary may be better represented using binary relationships
E.g. 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 know)

But there are some relationships that are naturally nonbinary

E.g. works-on

Specialization
Top-down design process; we designate subgroupings within an entity set that are distinctive from other entities in the set. These subgroupings 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. customer 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.

Specialization Example

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.

Specialization and Generalization (Contd.)

Can have multiple specializations of an entity set based on different features. E.g. permanent-employee vs. temporaryemployee, in addition to officer vs. secretary vs. teller Each particular employee would be
a member of one of permanent-employee or temporaryemployee, and also a member of one of officer, secretary, or teller

The ISA relationship also referred to as superclass - subclass relationship

Design Constraints on a Specialization/Generalization

Constraint on which entities can be members of a given lower-level entity set.
condition-defined
E.g. all customers over 65 years are members of senior-citizen entity set; senior-citizen ISA person.

user-defined

Constraint on whether or not entities may belong to more than one lower-level entity set within a single generalization.
Disjoint
an entity can belong to only one lower-level entity set Noted in E-R diagram by writing disjoint next to the ISA triangle

Overlapping
an entity can belong to more than one lower-level entity set

Aggregation
Consider the ternary relationship works-on, which we saw earlier Suppose we want to record managers for tasks performed by an employee at a branch

Aggregation (Cont.)
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 cant discard the works-on relationship

Eliminate this redundancy via aggregation

Treat relationship as an abstract entity Allows relationships between relationships Abstraction of relationship into new entity

Without introducing redundancy, the following diagram represents:

An employee works on a particular job at a particular branch An employee, branch, job combination may have an associated manager

E-R Diagram With Aggregation

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.

E-R Diagram for a Banking Enterprise

Summary of Symbols Used in E-R Notation

Summary of Symbols (Cont.)

Reduction of an E-R Schema to Tables

Primary keys allow entity sets and relationship sets to be expressed uniformly as tables which represent the contents of the database. A database which conforms to an E-R diagram can be represented by a collection of tables. For each entity set and relationship set there is a unique table which is assigned the name of the corresponding entity set or relationship set. Each table has a number of columns (generally corresponding to attributes), which have unique names. Converting an E-R diagram to a table format is the basis for deriving a relational database design from an E-R diagram.

Representing Entity Sets as Tables

(I ) A strong entity set reduces to a table with the same attributes. Eg:- The CUSTOMER (Customer-id, Customer-name, CustomerStreet, Customer-city) can be converted as
CUSTOMER Customer-id Customer-name Customer-Street Customer-city

( ii) Composite attributes are flattened out by creating a separate attribute for each component attribute
E.g. given entity set customer with composite attribute name with

component attributes first-name and last-name the table corresponding to the entity set has two attributes :first-name and last-name

Composite and Multivalued Attributes

(III) A multivalued attribute M of an entity E is represented by a separate table EM. Table EM has attributes corresponding to the primary key of E and an attribute corresponding to multivalued attribute M E.g. Multivalued attribute dependent-names of employee is represented by a table employee-dependent-names( employee-id, dname) Each value of the multivalued attribute maps to a separate row of the table EM E.g., an employee entity with primary key John and dependents Johnson and Johndotir maps to two rows: (John, Johnson) and (John, Johndotir)

(IV) A weak entity set becomes a table that includes a column for the primary key of the identifying strong entity set
Eg:- the weak entity Set Payment ( Payment-number ,payment-date, payment-amount) becomes
PAYMENT
Loan-Number Payment-number Payment-date Payment-amount

Where Loan- number is the primary key of the identifying relationship ( LOAN ) of Payment

Representing Relationship Sets as Tables A many-to-many relationship set is represented as a table with columns for the primary keys of the two participating entity sets, and any descriptive attributes of the relationship set. e.g.: table for relationship set borrower
BORROWER Customer-id Loan-Number

Many-to-one and one-to-many relationship sets that are total on the many-side can be represented by adding an extra attribute to the many side, containing the primary key of the one side E.g.: Instead of creating a table for relationship Loan-branch, add an attribute branch to the entity set Loan. Thus the LOAN table becomes Loan( Loan-number, amount, Branch)

Redundancy of Tables (Cont.)

For one-to-one relationship sets, either side can be chosen to act as the many side That is, extra attribute can be added to either of the tables corresponding to the two entity sets If participation is partial on the many side, replacing a table by an extra attribute in the relation corresponding to the many side could result in null values The table corresponding to a relationship set linking a weak entity set to its identifying strong entity set is redundant. E.g. The payment table already contains the information that would appear in the loan-payment table (i.e., the columns loan-number and payment-number).

E-R Diagram for Exercise 2.10

E-R Diagram for Exercise 2.15

E-R Diagram for Exercise 2.22