Chapter 1 – Part 1
THE ENTITY RELATIONSHIP
MODEL
Course: Advanced Databases
1
Introduction
E-R model is popular, due to following factors:
ease of use
CASE tool support
Entities and relationships are natural modeling
concepts.
E-R model is used to construct a conceptual data
model.
2
THE E-R MODEL
The E-R model is expressed in terms of
entities
relationships among those entities, and
the attributes of both the entities and their
relationships.
The E-R model is expressed as an entity-
relationship diagram (E-R diagram).
E-R Diagram: A graphical representation of
an entity-relationship model.
3
An Example
4
Basic E-R Notations
5
Entities
Entity: A person, place, object, event, or concept in the user
environment about which the organization wishes to maintain
data.
Example: CUSTOMER,
STUDENT, PATIENT
CITY, COUNTRY
SALE, REGISTRATION
COURSE, ACCOUNT
Entity Type versus Entity Instance
Entity type: A collection of entities that share common
properties or characteristics
Entity Instance: A single occurrence of an entity type
6
Strong versus weak entity types
Strong entity type: An entity that exists independently of other
entity types.
Weak entity type: An entity type whose existence depends on
some other entity type.
7
Attributes
Each entity type has a set of attributes associated with it.
Attribute: A property or characteristic of an entity type that is
of interest to the organization.
STUDENT: Student_ID, Student_Name, Address, Major.
AUTOMOBILE: Vehicle_ID, Color, Weight, Horsepower.
Composite attribute: An attribute that can be that can be
broken down into component parts.
Simple (atomic) attribute: An attribute that can be that cannot
be broken down into component parts.
8
Composite Attribute
9
Multivalued Attribute
Multivalued attribute: An attribute that may take on more
than one value for a given entity instance.
Derived attribute: An attribute whose values can be
calculated from related attribute values.
10
Identifier
Identifier: An attribute (or a combination of attributes) that
uniquely identifies individual instances of an entity type.
11
Composite identifier
Composite identifier: An identifier that consists of a composite
attribute.
12
RELATIONSHIPS
Relationship represents an association between (or among)
entity types.
Relationship Type: A meaningful association between (or
among) entity types.
Relationship instance: An association between (or among)
entity instances, where each relationship instance includes
exactly one entity from each participating entity type.
Register
Student_Name Course_Name Date_Completed Grade
Chen C++ 06/1998 A
Kim Java 10/1998 B+
Kim Basic 06/1998 C+ 13
Attributes on Relationship
Attributes may be associated with a many-many
(or one-to-one) relationships
14
Degree of a Relationship
-Unary Relationship
-Binary Relationship
-Ternary Relationship
15
Cardinality of Relationship
One – to – One
Each entity in the relationship will have exactly one related
entity
One – to – Many
An entity on one side of the relationship can have many
related entities, but an entity on the other side will have a
maximum of one related entity
Many – to – Many
Entities on both sides of the relationship can have many
related entities on the other side
16
Cardinality Constraints
Cardinality Constraints - the number of instances of
one entity that can or must be associated with each
instance of another entity.
Minimum Cardinality
If zero, then optional
If one or more, then mandatory
Maximum Cardinality
The maximum number
17
Cardinality
18
Unary Relationship
Unary relationship: a relationship between the
instances of a single entity type
19
Binary Relationship
20
Ternary Relationship
21
Maximum Cardinality
Mandatory Mininum Cardinality
22
A Unary relationship with an attribute
23
Optional Cardinality in unary relationship
24
Modeling Time-dependent data
Each value of the attribute Price is time-stamped with its
effective date.
25
Associative Entities
There are some reasons that the designers want to represent
a relationship as an entity type. That means a relationship
is abstracted into a new entity type.
Associative entity: An entity type that associates the
instances of one or more entity types and contains
attributes that are peculiar to the relationship between
those entity instances.
26
Ternary relationship as associative
entity
27
Conditions of associative
entity
Four conditions:
The relatioship must be a “many-to-many”
relationship.
The resulting associative entity has independent
meaning to end users, and can be identified with a
single-attribute identifier.
The associative entity has one or more attributes,
in addition to the identifier.
The associative entity participates in one or more
relationships independent of the entities related in
the associated relationship.
28
Cardinality of terniary relationships
Case 1:1:1
ENGINEER
uses
CASEBOOK PROJECT
All engineer will use one casebook for given project. Different engineers
use different casebook for the same project. No engineer will use the
same casebook for different projects.
29
Case 1:1:1
Funtional dependences:
EMP-NO, PROJ-NO BOOK-NO
BOOK-NO, PROJ-NO EMP-NO
EMP-NO, BOOK-NO PROJ-NO
30
Case 2: 1:1:N
Students work on projects under instructions of teachers.
No teacher can instruct any given student on more one
project. No student can work on any given project under the
instruction of more than one teacher.
FDs:
STUD-NO, EMP-NO PROJ-NO
STUD-NO, PROJ-NO EMP-NO
31
STUDENT
supervises
TEACHER PROJECT
32
Case 3: 1:M:N
Employees are assigned to one or more projects, but can only be assigned to
at most one project at a given location.
FDs:
EMP-NO, LOC-NAME PROJ-NO
EMPLOYEE
assigns
PROJECT LOCATION
33
Case 4: N:M:L
PART
supplies
VENDOR WAREHOUSE
FDs: PART-NO, VENDOR-NO, WAREHOUSE-NO
other attributes.
34
Multiple relationships
Examples of multiple relationships – entities can be
related to one another in more than one way.
35
Design steps of E-R Modeling
Step 1. Identify entity types
Step 2. Identify relationship types
Step 3. Identify and associate attributes with entity
or relationship types.
Step 4. Determine identifiers for entity types
Step 5. Identify Supertype/Subtype constructs
(optional)
Step 6. Draw E-R diagram
36
Some guidelines
-Ifthere is descriptive information about one object,
the object should be clasified as an entity.
-Attachattributes to entities that they they describe
most directly.
-Redundant relationship should be eliminated.
-Ternary relationships must be defined carefully.
37
E-R Diagram of
Sample Database
38
Reference
Jeffrey A.Hoffer, V.Ramesh. Heikki Topi,
Modern database management -11th
Edition, Pearson, 2013.
39
Pine Valley Furniture Company
The company sells a number of different furniture products. These
products are grouped into several product lines. The identifier for a
product is Product_ID, whereas the identifier for a product line is
Product_Line_ID. We identify the following additional attributes for
product: Product_Description, Product_Finish, and Standard_Price.
Another attribute for product line is Product_Line_Name. A product
line may group any number of products but must group at least one
product. Each product must belong to exactly one product line.
Customers submit orders for products. The identifier for an order is
Order_ID, and another attribute is Order_Date. A customer may
submit any number of orders, but need not submit any orders. Each
order is submitted by exactly one customer. The identifier for a
customer is Customer_ID. Other attributes include
Customer_Name, Customer_Address, and Postal_Code.
A given customer order must request at least one product and only
one product per order line item. Any product sold by Pine Valley
Furniture may not appear on any order line item or may appear on
one or more order line items. An attribute associated with each
order line is Ordered_Quantity
40
Pine Valley Furniture has established sales territories for its
customers. Each customer may do business in any number of these
sales territories or may not do business in any territory. A sales
territory has one-to-many customers. The identifier for a sale
territory is Territory_ID and an attribute of a Territory_Name.
Pine Valley Furniture has several salespersons. The identifier for a
salesperson is Salesperson_ID. Other attributes include
Salesperson_Name, Salesperson_Telephone, and
Salesperson_Fax. A salesperson serves exactly one sales territory.
Each sales territory is served by one or more salespersons.
Each product is assembled from a specified quantity of one or more
raw materials. The identifier for the raw material entity is
Material_ID. Other attributes include Unit_of_Measure,
Material_Name and Standard_Cost. Each raw material is
assembled into one or more products, using a specified quantity of
the raw material for each product.
Raw materials are supplied by vendors. The identifier for a vendor
is Vendor_ID. Other attributes include Vendor_Name and
Vendor_Address. Each raw material can be supplied by one or
more vendors. A vendor may supply any number of raw materials or
may not supply any raw materials to Pine Valley Furniture. An
attribute of the relationship between vendor and raw material is
Supply_Unit_Price
41
Pine Valley Furniture has established a number of work
centers. The identifier for a work center is Work_Center_ID.
Another attribute is Work_Center_Location. Each product is
produced in one or more work centers. A wok center may be
used to produce any number of products or may not be used
to produce any product.
The company has over 100 employees. The identifier for
employee is Employee_ID. Other attributes include
Employee_Name, Employee_Address and Skill. An employee
may have more than one skill. Each employee may work in
one or more work centers. A work center must have at least
one employee working in that center, but may have any
number of employees.
Each employee has exactly one supervisor except managers,
who have no supervisor. An employee who is a supervisor
may supervise any number of employees, but not all
employees are supervisors.
42
entity type, entity, relationship, attribute, identifier, weak
entity, entity instance, identifying relationship, composite
attribute, atomic attribute, derived attribute, multivalue
attribute, time-dependent-data, one-to-one relationship,
one-to-many relationship, many-to-many relationship,
associative entity, cardinality of relationship, unary
relationship, binary relationship, ternary relationship,
cardinality constraints, ER model, ER diagram, functional
dependencies, business rules.
43
