Chapter 4

Logical Database Design and the Relational Model

TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Transforming (or mapping) EER diagrams into relations is a relatively straightforward
process with a well-defined set of rules. In fact, many CASE tools can automatically
perform many of the conversion steps. However, it is important that you understand the
steps in this process for four reasons:
• 1. CASE tools often cannot model more complex data relationships such as ternary
relationships and supertype/subtype relationships. In these situations, you may have to
perform the steps manually.
• 2. There are sometimes legitimate alternatives for which you will need to choose a
particular solution.
• 3. You must be prepared to perform a quality check on the results obtained with a CASE
tool.
• 4. Understanding the transformation process helps you understand why conceptual
data modeling is different from logical data modeling.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• 1. Regular entities are entities that have an independent existence
and generally represent real-world objects, such as persons and
products. Regular entity types are represented by rectangles with a
single line.
• 2. Weak entities are entities that cannot exist except with an
identifying relationship with an owner (regular) entity type. Weak
entities are identified by a rectangle with a double line.
• 3. Associative entities (also called gerunds) are formed from many-
to-many relationships between other entity types. Associative entities
are represented by a rectangle with rounded corners.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 1: Map Regular Entities
• Each regular entity type in an E-R diagram is transformed into a
relation. The name given to the relation is generally the same as the
entity type.
• Each simple attribute of the entity type becomes an attribute of the
relation. The identifier of the entity type becomes the primary key of
the corresponding relation.
• Figure 4-8a shows a representation of the CUSTOMER entity type for
Pine Valley Furniture Company. The corresponding CUSTOMER
relation is shown in graphical form in Figure 4-8b.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 1: Map Regular Entities
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 1: Map Regular Entities
COMPOSITE ATTRIBUTES
• When a regular entity type has a composite attribute, only the simple
components of the composite attribute are included in the new
relation as its attributes.
• Figure 4-9 shows a variant of the example in Figure 4-8, where
Customer Address is represented as a composite attribute with
components Street, City, and State (see Figure 4-9a). This entity is
mapped to the CUSTOMER relation, which contains the simple
address attributes, as shown in Figure 4-9b.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 1: Map Regular Entities
COMPOSITE ATTRIBUTES
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
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• Step 1: Map Regular Entities
MULTIVALUED ATTRIBUTES
• When the regular entity type contains a multivalued attribute, two new relations (rather than
one) are created. The first relation contains all of the attributes of the entity type except the
multivalued attribute.
• The second relation contains two attributes that form the primary key of the second relation.
The first of these attributes is the primary key from the first relation, which becomes a foreign
key in the second relation. The second is the multivalued attribute. The name of the second
relation should capture the meaning of the multivalued attribute.
• An example of this procedure is shown in Figure 4-10. This is the EMPLOYEE entity type for Pine
Valley Furniture Company. As shown in Figure 4-10a, EMPLOYEE has Skill as a multivalued
attribute. Figure 4-10b shows the two relations that are created. The first (called EMPLOYEE)
has the primary key EmployeeID. The second relation (called EMPLOYEE SKILL) has the two
attributes, EmployeeID and Skill, which form the primary key.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 1: Map Regular Entities
MULTIVALUED ATTRIBUTES
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 2: Map Weak Entities
• Recall that a weak entity type does not have an independent existence but
exists only through an identifying relationship with another entity type called
the owner.
• A weak entity type does not have a complete identifier but must have an
attribute called partial identifier that permits distinguishing the various
occurrences of the weak entity for each owner entity instance.
• For each weak entity type, create a new relation and include all of the simple
attributes (or simple components of composite attributes) as attributes of this
relation. Then include the primary key of the identifying relation as a foreign
key attribute in this new relation.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 2: Map Weak Entities
• An example of this process is shown in Figure 4-11. Figure 4-11a shows the
weak entity type DEPENDENT and its identifying entity type EMPLOYEE, linked
by the identifying relationship Claims.
• Figure 4-11b shows the two relations that result from mapping this E-R
segment.
• An alternative approach is often used to simplify the primary key of the
DEPENDENT relation: Create a new attribute (called DependentID), which will
be used as a surrogate primary key in Figure 4-11b.
SURROGATE PRIMARY KEY
• A serial number or other system assigned primary key for a relation.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 2: Map Weak Entities
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMS INTO
RELATIONS
• Step 3: Map Binary relationships
• Map Binary One-to-Many Relationships
• For each binary 1:M relationship, first create a relation for each of the
two entity types participating in the relationship, using the procedure
described in Step 1.
• Next, include the primary key attribute (or attributes) of the entity on
the one-side of the relationship as a foreign key in the relation that is
on the many-side of the relationship.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 3: Map Binary relationships
• MAP BINARY ONE-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 3: Map Binary relationships
• MAP BINARY MANY-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
• Suppose that there is a binary many-to-many (M:N) relationship between two
entity types, A and B. For such a relationship, create a new relation, C.
• Include as foreign key attributes in C the primary key for each of the two
participating entity types. These attributes together become the primary key
of C. Any non key attributes that are associated with the M:N relationship are
included with the relation C.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 3: Map Binary relationships
• MAP BINARY MANY-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 4: Map Associative Entities
• The first step is to create three relations: one for each of the two
participating entity types and a third for the associative entity.
• The relation formed from the associative entity is known as the
associative relation.
• The second step then depends on whether on the E-R diagram an
identifier was assigned to the associative entity.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 4: Map Associative Entities
IDENTIFIER NOT ASSIGNED
• If an identifier was not assigned, the default primary key for the
associative relation is a composite key that consists of the two
primary key attributes from the other two relations.
• These attributes are then foreign keys that reference the other two
relations.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 4: Map Associative Entities
IDENTIFIER NOT ASSIGNED
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
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• Step 4: Map Associative Entities
IDENTIFIER ASSIGNED
• Sometimes a data modeler will assign a single-attribute identifier to
the associative entity type on the E-R diagram.
• 1. The associative entity type has a natural single-attribute identifier
that is familiar to end users.
• 2. The default identifier (consisting of the identifiers for each of the
participating entity types) may not uniquely identify instances of the
associative entity.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 4: Map Associative Entities
IDENTIFIER ASSIGNED
• A new (associative) relation is created to represent the associative entity.
• However, the primary key for this relation is the identifier assigned on the E-R
diagram.
• The primary keys for the two participating entity types are then included as
foreign keys in the associative relation.
• The result of mapping this entity to a set of relations is shown in Figure 4-16b.
• The new associative relation is named SHIPMENT.
• CustomerID and VendorID are included as foreign keys in this relation, and
ShipmentDate and ShipmentAmount are nonkey attributes.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 4: Map Associative Entities
IDENTIFIER ASSIGNED
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 5: Map unary relationship
• Unary relationships are also called recursive relationships.
• The two most important cases of unary relationships are one-to-many
and many-to-many relationships.
• UNARY ONE-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
• The entity type in the unary relationship is mapped to a relation using
the procedure described in Step 1.
• Next, a foreign key attribute is added to the same relation; this
attribute references the primary key values in the same relation.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 5: Map unary relationship
• UNARY ONE-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
• Figure 4-17a shows a unary one-to-many relationship named Manages that associates
each employee of an organization with another employee who is his or her manager.
• Each employee may have one manager; a given employee may manage zero to many
employees.
• The EMPLOYEE relation that results from mapping this entity and relationship is shown
in Figure 4-17b.
• The (recursive) foreign key in the relation is named ManagerID. This attribute has the
same domain as the primary key EmployeeID.
• Each row of this relation stores the following data for a given employee: EmployeeID,
EmployeeName, EmployeeDateOfBirth, and ManagerID.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 5: Map unary relationship
UNARY ONE-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 5: Map unary relationship
UNARY MANY-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
• The primary key of the associative relation consists of two attributes.
• These attributes (which need not have the same name) both take their
values from the primary key of the other relation.
• Any non key attribute of the relationship is included in the associative
relation.
• An example of mapping a unary M:N relationship is shown in Figure 4-18.
• Figure 4-18a shows a bill-of-materials relationship among items that are
assembled from other items or components.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 5: Map unary relationship
UNARY MANY-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
• The relations that result from mapping this entity and its relationship
are shown in Figure 4-18b.
• The ITEM relation is mapped directly from the same entity type.
• COMPONENT is an associative relation whose primary key consists of
two attributes that are arbitrarily named ItemNo and ComponentNo.
• The attribute Quantity is a nonkey attribute of this relation that, for a
given item, records the quantity of a particular component item used in
that item.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 5: Map unary relationship
UNARY MANY-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 6: Map ternary (and n-ary) relationships
• A ternary relationship is a relationship among three entity types.
• To map an associative entity type that links three regular entity types, we create a
new associative relation n.
• The default primary key of this relation consists of the three primary key attributes for
the participating entity types.
• An example of mapping a ternary relationship (represented as an associative entity
type) is shown in Figure 4-19.
• Figure 4-19a is an E-R segment (or view) that represents a patient receiving a
treatment from a physician.
• The associative entity type PATIENT TREATMENT has the attributes PTreatment Date,
PTreatment Time, and PTreatment Results;
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 6: Map ternary (and n-ary) relationships
• The result of mapping this view is shown in Figure 4-19b.
• The primary key attributes PatientID, PhysicianID, and TreatmentCode
become foreign keys in PATIENT TREATMENT.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
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• Step 6: Map ternary (and n-ary) relationships
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
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• Step 7: : Map Supertype/Subtype relationships
• 1. Create a separate relation for the supertype and for each of its
subtypes.
• 2. Assign to the relation created for the supertype the attributes that
are common to all members of the supertype, including the primary
key.
• 3. Assign to the relation for each subtype the primary key of the
supertype and only those attributes that are unique to that subtype.
• 4. Assign one (or more) attributes of the supertype to function as the
subtype discriminator.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 7: : Map Supertype/Subtype relationships
• An example of applying this procedure is shown in Figures 4-20 and 4-
21.
• Figure 4-20 shows the supertype EMPLOYEE with subtypes HOURLY
EMPLOYEE, SALARIED EMPLOYEE, and CONSULTANT.
• The primary key of EMPLOYEE is Employee Number, and the attribute
Employee Type is the subtype discriminator
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 7: : Map Supertype/Subtype relationships
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
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• Step 7: : Map Supertype/Subtype relationships
• The result of mapping this diagram to relations using these rules is shown in
Figure 4-21. There is one relation for the supertype (EMPLOYEE) and one for
each of the three subtypes.
• The primary key for each of the four relations is EmployeeNumber.
• A prefix is used to distinguish the name of the primary key for each subtype.
For example, SEmployeeNumber is the name for the primary key of the
relation SALARIED EMPLOYEE.
• Each of these attributes is a foreign key that references the supertype primary
key, as indicated by the arrows in the diagram.
• Each subtype relation contains only those attributes unique to the subtype.
TRANSFORMING EER DIAGRAMSINTO
RELATIONS
• Step 7: : Map Supertype/Subtype relationships