Chapter 7: Entity-Relationship Model

Database System Concepts, 7th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
See [Link] for conditions on re-use
 Design Phases
 The initial phase of database design is to characterize fully the data
needs of the prospective database users.
 Next, the designer chooses a data model and, by applying the
concepts of the chosen data model, translates these requirements
into a conceptual schema of the database.
 A fully developed conceptual schema also indicates the functional
requirements of the enterprise. In a “specification of functional
requirements”, users describe the kinds of operations (or
transactions) that will be performed on the data.

Database System Concepts 7.2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan

 Design Phases (Cont.)

The process of moving from an abstract data model to the

implementation of the database proceeds in two final design
phases.
 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

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 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 8)
 Formalize what designs are bad, and test for them

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 Outline of the ER Model

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 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 model is very useful in mapping the meanings and
interactions of real-world enterprises onto a conceptual schema.
Because of this usefulness, many database-design tools draw on
concepts from the ER model.
 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.

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 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, street, city, salary )
course= (course_id, title, credits)
 A subset of the attributes form a primary key of the entity
set; i.e., uniquely identifiying each member of the set.

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 Entity Sets -- instructor and student

instructor_ID instructor_name student-ID student_name

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 ER Diagram: Entity Sets
 Entities can be represented graphically as follows:
• Rectangles represent entity sets.
• Attributes listed inside entity rectangle
• Underline indicates primary key attributes

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 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

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 Relationship Set advisor

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 ER Diagram: Relationship Sets

 Diamonds represent relationship sets.

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 Relationship Sets (Cont.)
 An attribute can also be associated with a relationship set i.e. descriptive attribute.
 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

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 ER Diagram: Relationship Sets with
Attributes

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 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

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 E-R diagram with a ternary relationship

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 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.

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 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

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 Composite Attributes

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 Notation to Express Entity with Complex Attributes

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 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

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 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

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 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

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 One-to-one Relationship
 one-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 at most one instructor via advisor,

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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
 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

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 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

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 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

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 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.

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

1 advisor; cannot have multiple advisors

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 Cardinality Constraints on Ternary Relationship

 A ternary relationship is a relationship of degree three. That is, a

relationship that contains three participating entities.
 Cardinalities for ternary relationships can take the form of [Link],
[Link]M, 1:M:N or M:N:P.
 The cardinality constraint of an entity in a ternary relationship is
defined by a pair of two entity instances associated with the other
single entity instance.
 For example, in a ternary relationship R(X, Y, Z) of cardinality M:N:1,
for each pair of (X, Y) there is only one instance of Z; for each pair
of (X, Z) there are N instances of Y; for each pair of (Y, Z) there are
M instances of X.

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 Primary Key

▪ Primary keys provide a way to specify how entities and relationships are
distinguished. We will consider:
 Entity sets
 Relationship sets.
 Weak entity sets

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 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 values 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

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 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 [Link] and [Link]
▪ The choice of the primary key for a relationship set depends on the
mapping cardinality of the relationship set.

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 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 . The primary key of the “Many” side is a

minimal superkey and is used as the primary key.

▪ 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.

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 Weak Entity Sets

▪ Consider a section entity, which is uniquely identified by a course_id,

semester, year, and sec_id.

▪ Clearly, section entities are related to course entities. 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.

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 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.

▪ A weak entity set is one whose existence is dependent on another entity,

called its identifying entity

▪ 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.

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 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.
▪ Note that the relational schema we eventually create from the entity set
section does have the attribute course_id, for reasons that will become
clear later, even though we have dropped the attribute course_id from
the entity set section.

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 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)

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 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.

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 Schema Diagram for University Database (Relational
Model)

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 E-R Diagram for University Enterprise

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