The Entity-Relationship Model

Database Design

Goal of design is to generate a formal specification of the database schema
Methodology:

Use E-R model to get a high-level graphical view of essential components of enterprise and how they are related
Then convert E-R diagram to SQL DDL, or whatever database model you are using

E-R Model is not SQL based. It's not limited to any particular DBMS. It is a conceptual and semantic model – captures meanings rather than an actual implementation
basic ER diagram symbols

The E-R Model: The enterprise is viewed as set of

Entities
Relationships among entities

Symbols used in E-R Diagram

Entity – rectangle
Attribute – oval
Relationship – diamond
Link - line

Entities and Attributes

Entity: an object that is involved in the enterprise and that be distinguished from other objects. (not shown in the ER diagram--is an instance)

Can be person, place, event, object, concept in the real world
Can be physical object or abstraction
Ex: "John", "CSE305"

Entity Type: set of similar objects or a category of entities; they are well defined

A rectangle represents an entity set
Ex: students, courses
We often just say "entity" and mean "entity type"

Attribute: describes one aspect of an entity type; usually [and best when] single valued and indivisible (atomic)

Represented by oval on E-R diagram
Ex: name, maximum enrollment
May be multi-valued – use double oval on E-R diagram
May be composite – attribute has further structure; also use oval for composite attribute, with ovals for components connected to it by lines
May be derived – a virtual attribute, one that is computable from existing data in the database, use dashed oval. This helps reduce redundancy

Entity Types

An entity type is named and is described by set of attributes

Student: Id, Name, Address, Hobbies

Domain: possible values of an attribute.

Note that the value for an attribute can be a set or list of values, sometimes called "multi-valued" attributes
This is in contrast to the pure relational model which requires atomic values
E.g., (111111, John, 123 Main St, (stamps, coins))

Key: subset of attributes that uniquely identifies an entity (candidate key)

Entity Schema:

The meta-information of entity type name, attributes (and associated domain), key constraints
Entity Types tend to correspond to nouns; attributes are also nouns albeit descriptions of the parts of entities
May have null values for some entity attribute instances – no mapping to domain for those instances

Keys

Superkey: an attribute or set of attributes that uniquely identifies an entity--there can be many of these
Composite key: a key requiring more than one attribute
Candidate key: a superkey such that no proper subset of its attributes is also a superkey (minimal superkey – has no unnecessary attributes)
Primary key: the candidate key chosen to be used for identifying entities and accessing records. Unless otherwise noted "key" means "primary key"
Alternate key: a candidate key not used for primary key
Secondary key: attribute or set of attributes commonly used for accessing records, but not necessarily unique
Foreign key: term used in relational databases (but not in the E-R model) for an attribute that is the primary key of another table and is used to establish a relationship with that table where it appears as an attribute also.
So a foreign key value occurs in the table and again in the other table. This conflicts with the idea that a value is stored only once; the idea that a fact is stored once is not undermined.

Graphical Representation in E-R diagram

Rectangle -- Entity
Ellipses -- Attribute (underlined attributes are [part of] the primary key)
Double ellipses -- multi-valued attribute
Dashed ellipses-- derived attribute, e.g. age is derivable from birthdate and current date.

[Drawing notes: keep all attributes above the entity. Lines have no arrows. Use straight lines only]

Relationships

Relationship: connects two or more entities into an association/relationship

"John" majors in "Computer Science"

Relationship Type: set of similar relationships

Student (entity type) is related to Department (entity type) by MajorsIn (relationship type).

Relationship Types may also have attributes in the E-R model. When they are mapped to the relational model, the attributes become part of the relation. Represented by a diamond on E-R diagram.
Relationship types can have descriptive attributes like entity sets
Relationships tend to be verbs or verb phrases; attributes of relationships are again nouns

[Drawing tips: relationship diamonds should connect off the left and right points; Dia can label those points with cardinality; use Manhattan connecting line (horizontal/vertical zigzag)]

Attributes and Roles

An attribute of a relationship type adds additional information to the relationship

e.g., "John" majors in "CS" since 2000
John and CS are related
2000 describes the relationship - it's the value of the since attribute of MajorsIn relationship type

The role of a relationship type names one of the related entities. The name of the entity is usually the role name.
e.g., "John" is value of Student role, "CS" value of Department role of MajorsIn relationship type
(John, CS, 2000) describes a relationshipProblem: relationships can relate elements of same entity type

e.g., ReportsTo relationship type relates two elements of Employee entity type:

Bob reports to Mary since 2000

We do not have distinct names for the roles. It is not clear who reports to whom.

Solution: the role name of relationship type need not be same as name of entity type from which participants are drawn

ReportsTo has roles Subordinate and Supervisor and attribute Since
Values of Subordinate and Supervisor both drawn from entity type Employee

Optional to name role of each entity-relationship, but helpful in cases of

Recursive relationship – entity set relates to itself
Multiple relationships between same entity sets

Roles are edges labeled with role names (omitted if role name = name of entity set). Most attributes have been omitted.

Relationship Type

Relationship types are described by the set of roles (entities) and [optional] attributes

e.g., MajorsIn: Student, Department, Since

Think that entities are nouns; relationship types are often verbs

students and departments are the entities (nouns) and roles in relationship types
majors is the relationship type (verb)
i.e., "student" "majors in " "department"

Here we have equate the role name (Student) the name of the entity type (Student) of the participant in the relationship.

Degree of relationship

The number of roles in the relationship

Binary – links two entity sets; set of ordered pairs (most common)
Ternary – links three entity sets; ordered triples (rare). If a relationship exists among the three entities, all three must be present
N-ary – links n entity sets; ordered n-tuples (very rare). If a relationship exists among the entities, then all must be present. Cannot represesnt subsets.
Note: ternary relationships may sometimes be replaced by two binary relationships (see book Figures 3.5 and 3.13). Semantic equivalence between ternary relationships and two binary ones are not necessarily true.

Cardinality of Relationships

Cardinality is the number of entity instances to which another entity set can map under the relationship. This does not reflect a requirement that an entity has to participate in a relationship. Participation is another concept.
One-to-one: X-Y is 1:1 when each entity in X is associated with at most one entity in Y, and each entity in Y is associated with at most one entity in X.
One-to-many: X-Y is 1:M when each entity in X can be associated with many entities in Y, but each entity in Y is associated with at most one entity in X.
Many-to-many: X:Y is M:M if each entity in X can be associated with many entities in Y, and each entity in Y is associated with many entities in X ("many" =>one or more and sometimes zero)

Relationship Participation Constraints

Total participation

Every member of entity set must participate in the relationship
Represented by double line from entity rectangle to relationship diamond
E.g., A Class entity cannot exist unless related to a Faculty member entity in this example, not necessarily at Juniata.
You can set this double line in Dia
In a relational model we will use the references clause.

Key constraint

If every entity participates in exactly one relationship, both a total participation and a key constraint hold
E.g., if a class is taught by only one faculty member.

Partial participation

Not every entity instance must participate
Represented by single line from entity rectangle to relationship diamond
E.g., A Textbook entity can exist without being related to a Class or vice versa.

Existence Dependency and Weak Entities

Existence dependency: Entity Y is existence dependent on entity X is each instance of Y must have a corresponding instance of X
In that case, Y must have total participation in its relationship with X
If Y does not have its own candidate key, Y is called a weak entity, and X is strong entity
Weak entity may have a partial key, called a discriminator, that distinguishes instances of the weak entity that are related to the same strong entity
Use double rectangle for weak entity, with double diamond for relationship connecting it to its associated strong entity
Note: not all existence dependent entities are weak – the lack of a key is essential to definition

Schema of a Relationship Type

Contains the following features:

Role names, R_i, and their corresponding entity sets. Roles must be single valued (the number of roles is called its degree)
Attribute names, A_j, and their corresponding domains. Attributes in the E-R model may be set or multi-valued.
Key: Minimum set of roles and attributes that uniquely identify a relationship
Relationship: <e₁, …e_n; a₁, …a_k>

e_iis an entity, a value from R_i’s entity set

a_jis a set of attribute values with elements from domain of A_j

ER Diagram Example

clustering thoughts

Friday, 21 February 2014