3️⃣
ER Model
Status Done
Tags Need Revision
📌 LEC-3: Entity-Relationship Model
📚 1. Data Model
A collection of conceptual tools for describing:
Data 📊
Data relationships 🔗
Data semantics 🧠
Consistency constraints ✅
🏗 2. ER Model (Entity-Relationship Model)
🔹 A high-level data model that represents real-world objects as entities and their
relationships.
🔹 Uses
ER diagrams 📜 as a blueprint for databases.
🏢 Entities
An entity is an object in the real world that is distinguishable from others.
Example: Each student in a college is an entity.
Entities are uniquely identified by a primary attribute (Primary Key 🔑).
ER Model 1
🔥 Types of Entities
🏆: Can be uniquely identified.
1. Strong Entity
2. Weak Entity 🏳: Cannot be uniquely identified & depends on a strong entity.
Example: Loan (Strong) → Payment (Weak), as installments are sequential
numbers.
Weak entities rely on strong entities for existence.
📂 Entity Set
A set of entities sharing the same properties/attributes.
Examples:
Students 🎓
Customers of a bank 🏦
🎭 3. Attributes
Entities are represented by attributes.
Each entity has a value for each attribute.
🔢 Types of Attributes
1. Simple ⚡: Cannot be divided further (e.g., Roll Number, Account Number).
2. Composite 🏗: Can be divided into subparts (e.g., Name → First, Middle,
Last).
3. Single-valued 🔑: Holds only one value (e.g., Student ID, Loan Number).
4. Multi-valued 📜: Holds multiple values (e.g., Phone numbers, Nominees in
insurance policies).
5. Derived 🏛: Values derived from other attributes (e.g., Age from Date of Birth).
6. NULL Value 🚫:
Indicates missing or unknown data (e.g., Middle name may not exist).
🔗
Can indicate "Not Known" (e.g., Salary not updated yet).
ER Model 2
🔗 4. Relationships
Associations between entities.
Examples:
Person has Vehicle 🚗
Parent has Child 👶
Customer borrows Loan 💰
🏆 Types of Relationships
💪: Between two independent entities.
1. Strong Relationship
2. Weak Relationship 💀: Between a weak entity and its owner/strong entity.
Example: Loan Payment.
🔢 Degree of Relationships
1. Unary (1 entity) 🔄: Employee manages Employee.
2. Binary (2 entities) 🔗: Student takes Course.
3. Ternary (3 entities) 🔺: Employee works on Job at Branch.
4. Binary relationships are the most common.
📏 5. Relationship Constraints
🎯 Mapping Cardinality / Cardinality Ratio
Defines how many entities can be associated with another entity:
Cardinality Definition Example
1:1🔢 One entity in A is related to at most one
entity in B
Citizen has Aadhar Card🆔
1:M 🔁 Citizen owns Vehicles 🚗🚙
One entity in A is related to multiple entities
in B
M:1 🔄
Many entities in A relate to at most one Course taught by Professor
entity in B 👨🏫
ER Model 3
M:N 🔗 Many entities in A relate to many entities in
B
Student attends Courses
🎓📚
🔍 Participation Constraints
Minimum cardinality constraint.
Defines whether all entities participate in a relationship or not.
Types of Participation Constraints
1. Partial Participation⏳: Not all entities participate.
2. Total Participation ✅: Each entity must be involved in at least one
relationship.
Example: Customer borrows Loan.
Loan has Total Participation as it cannot exist without a Customer.
Customer has Partial Participation.
ER Notation
ER Model 4
