Data Modeling : ER Model

N. L. Sarda
I.I.T. Bombay

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Why We Model
• We build models of complex systems
because we cannot comprehend any
such system in its entirety
• Need to develop a common
understanding of the problem and
the solution
• Cannot afford a trial-and-error
approach
• to communicate the desired structure
and behavior of our systems
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Why We Model…
• to visualize and control system’s
architecture
• to understand the system we are
building, often exposing
opportunities for simplification and
reuse
• to manage risk

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How We Model
• The choice of which model we use
has a profound influence on how a
problem is attacked and how a
solution is shaped
• No single model is sufficient; every
complex system is best approached
through a set of independent models
• Every model may be expressed at
different levels of fidelity
• The best models are connected to
reality 4
OUTLINE
• Data model
• Concepts of entity and relationships
• E-R diagramming
• Keys
• Weak entities
• Extended E-R model

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DATA MODEL
• for representation of a part of a real
world
• it is an abstraction of the reality :
ignores unnecessary details
• represents operational data about
real world events, entities, activities,
etc.
• model may be at various levels
depending of requirements :
• logical or physical
• external, conceptual, internal
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Data Model……
• a good model
• is easy to understand
• has a few concepts
• permits top-down specifications
• model offers concepts, constructs
and operations
• must capture meaning of data (data
semantics) which help us in
interpreting and manipulating data

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Data Model……
• semantics captured through data
types, inter-relationships and data
integrity constraints
• uniqueness
• existence dependence
• restrictions on some operations such as
insertions, deletions

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Example : Data Model in a PL
• data structuring concepts
• data field/variable
• data groups and arrays
• Record/structure : unit of file i/o
• file : collection of records

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Example : Data Model in a PL
…
•Operations
• file level : open, close
• record level :
• read next/random
• write next/random
• field level : computations
• no inter-file and inter-record
relationships
• no constraints except primary key for
indexed files

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ENTITY-RELATIONSHIP (ER)
MODEL
• for representation of real-world
• represents overall logical structure of
information
• grouping of data elements
• inter-relationships between groups

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ER MODEL….
• a few concepts
• simple and easy-to-use
• permits top-down approach for
controlling details
• useful as a tool for communication
between designer and user during
requirements analysis and
conceptual design

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ENTITY
• an object that exists
• distinguishable from other objects
• could be concrete or abstract
• Examples : a book, an item, a
student, a purchase order
(a/an above indicates that we are
referring to one of these)

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ENTITY SET
• a set of similar entities
• need not be disjoint with other entity
sets
• e.g., supplier and customer may have
common entities
• Example : set of all books in a library
• set of all customers
• entity set also called entity type or
entity class
• entity considered as an occurrence of
entity type 14
ENTITY SET……
• we often use the words ‘entity’ to
mean ‘entity-set’
• entity sets are named using singular
common nouns :
Book
Student
Course

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ATTRIBUTE
• an entity has a set of attributes
• attribute defines property of an
entity
• it is given a name
• attribute has value for each entity
• value may change over time
• same set of attributes are defined for
entities in an entity set

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ATTRIBUTE….
• Example : entity set BOOK has the
following attributes
TITLE ISBN
ACC-NO AUTHOR
PUBLISHER YEAR
PRICE
• a particular book has value for each
of the above attributes

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ATTRIBUTE….
• an attribute may be multi-valued,
i.e., it has more than one value for a
given entity; e.g., a book may have
many authors
• an attribute which uniquely identifies
entities of a set is called primary key
attribute of that entity set
• composite attribute : date, address,
etc

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DOMAIN
• gives set of permitted values for an
attribute
• all values may not be present at all
times in database
• may be defined by type : integer,
string
• attributes are ‘roles’ played by
domains
• domain ‘personname’ can be used for
attribute ‘name’ for teacher and
student entities
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EXAMPLE : A COLLEGE
• STUDENT : rollno, name, hostel-no.,
date-of-birth
• COURSE : courseno, name, credits
• TEACHER : empno, name, rank,
room-no., tel-phone
• DEPT : name, tel-phone

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EXAMPLE : A COLLEGE…
• this example will be refined further
• perception of reality and focus of
design could have indicated more
entities
• HOSTEL SEMESTER
• Or, teacher could only be an attribute

EXERCISE : identify entities in a

hospital and
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give a few instances of each
RELATIONSHIP
• represents association among
entities
• e.g., a particular book is a text for
particular course
• book ‘Database Systems’ by C.J. Date is
text for course identified by code
‘CS644’
• e.g., student GANESH has enrolled
for course CS644

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RELATIONSHIP SET
• set of relationships of same type
• words ‘relationship’ and ‘relationship
set’ often used interchangeably
• between certain entity sets
• binary relationship : between two entity
sets
• ternary relationship : among three entity
sets

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RELATIONSHIP SET….
• e.g., binary relationship set STUDY
between STUDENT and COURSE
• relationship STUDY could be ternary
among STUDENT, COURSE and
TEACHER
• What is the difference ?
• a relationship may have attributes
• e.g., attribute GRADE and SEMESTER for
STUDY

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RELATIONSHIP SET….
• relationships named using verbs or
nouns
Study
Enroll
Order

EXERCISE : identify relationships and

their attributes in the hospital
example and give a few
instances of each

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DEPICTING A RELATIONSHIP
• entity sets as a collection
• entity instances by small circles
• relationship instances by small
rectangle with connections to
involved entities

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RELATIONSHIP CARDINALITY
• is a constraint on a relationship
• it characterizes relationships further
• given as (mapping) cardinality : how
many entities of an entity set
participate in a relationship
• especially useful for binary
relationships

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RELATIONSHIP CARDINALITY…
• a relationship set R between entity
sets A and B may be one of the
following
• one-to-one : one entity in A associated
with at most one entity in B
• one-to-many : one entity in A may be
associated with zero/more number of
entities in B. However, one entity in B
can be associated with at most one
entity from A.
• many-to-one : reverse of above
definition (like a mathematical function)
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RELATIONSHIP CARDINALITY…
• many-to-many : one entity in A may be
associated with any number of entities
in B, and vice-versa.
• EXAMPLES :
• relationship set TEACHES from TEACHER
to COURSE is one-to-many
(TAUGHT-BY from COURSE to TEACHER is
many-to-one)
• relationship STUDY between STUDENT
and COURSE is many-to-many

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EXISTENCE DEPENDENCE
• existence dependency : another
important constraint
• existence of entity ‘a’ may depend on
existence of another entity ‘b’:
‘b’ is called dominant entity and ‘a’ is
called subordinate entity

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EXISTENCE DEPENDENCE…
• there exists existence dependency of
• TEACHER on DEPT as no teacher can be
appointed without fixing her department
• Subordinate entity has its own key
and may participate in more
relationship

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E-R Diagram : Examples

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• Add some attributes to entities here
• Courses may have another course as pre-requisite
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 • Describe the real-world mapped above in words.
• Can you represents this : a supplier may supply same part many times
Note : Relationship ‘supplies’ could also be ternary
(by involving warehouse)
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TERNARY RELATIONSHIPS
• be sure that your model reflects real-
world correctly
• ternary (or, of higher order)
relationships are harder to
understand
• is a ternary equivalent to two binary?
if not, which one is correct in a given
situation?

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TERNARY RELATIONSHIPS…
• consider shipments data where parts
are supplied to projects by suppliers
in certain quantities; given :
S1 supplies 40 number of P1 to J1
• we lose context if we replace it by
S1 supplies 40 of P1
S1 supplies to J1
• thus, ternary relationship is not same as
two binary relationships

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PRIMARY KEYS
• to distinguish occurrences of entities
and relationships
• distinction made using values of
some attributes
• superkey : set of one/more attributes
which, taken collectively, uniquely
identify an entity in an entity set
• superkey may contain extraneous
attributes

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PRIMARY KEYS…..
• e.g., rollno is sufficient to identify
students
• it is a primary key
• combination (rollno, name) is a
superkey
• name itself may not be sufficient as key
• candidate key is minimal superkey.
No subset of it is a superkey
• an entity may have multiple
candidate keys
• primary key is a candidate key 46
PRIMARY KEY FOR
REPATIONSHIPS
• made of primary keys of all
participating entities e.g., primary
key of STUDY is
(rollno, courseno)

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WEAK ENTITY
• does not have a primary key on its
own
• they are related to one/more ‘strong’
entities
• they often can be visualized as
multivalued attribute or group of
attributes
• they either have a ‘partial’ key or we
add one to distinguish between
those which are related to same
strong entity 48
WEAK ENTITY…
• examples:
• branches of a bank
• interviews between candidates and
companies viewed as entities (not
relationships) so that they can
participate further in relationships
• E-R diagrams follow

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WEAK ENTITY…
• partial key (BrName in example) also
called discriminatory attribute
• a weak entity can participate further
in relationships with other entities
• a weak entity can also have weak
entities dependent on in
• primary key of weak entity = primary
key of its strong entity +
discriminating attribute of weak
entity within the context of strong
entity 51
• showsweak entity depending on two strong entities.
• Taken from Elmasri/Navathe’s book
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EXERCISE (Post-Graduate
studies)
Students join a particular specialization
offered by a department. A specialization
with same title (e.g., MICROCOMPUTER)
may be offered by one/more depts
independently. Teachers are appointed to
a specific dept, and given a room and
telephone. Depts have some teacher as its
head. Courses are offered under various
specializations. A teacher may teach many
courses and a course may be taught by
many. A student studies a course under a
teacher during some semester (e.g.,
semester 1 of 1989), and is awarded a
grade. A teacher’s research interest may
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lie in one/more specializations. Courses
EXTENDED E-R MODEL
• extensions to capture more meaning
• concepts of generalization,
aggregation and sub-set hierarchies
added
• Similar to OO concepts : inheritance,
composite objects

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Generalization
• to generalize from two or more entity
sets and factor out commonality
• entity E is generalization of entities
E1, E2, E3 … if each instance of E is
also an instance of one and only one
of E1, E2, etc.; E called superclass of
E1, E2, …
• represented by IS-A relationship

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Generalization…

• Example : given two entities Faculty

and Non-faculty,we can define a
‘general’ entity called Employee
• Common attributes are factored out
to define ‘Employee’ entity; specific
(non-common) attributes
incorporated in ‘Faculty’ and ‘Non-
faculty’ entities

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Another example :

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Specialization
• also called subset hierarchy
• entity E1 is subset of E if every
instance of E1 is also an instance of
E; this is also IS-A relationship
• E called superset and E1 as subset
(or sub-class); E may have multiple
and possibly over-lapping subsets
• every instance in E need not be
present in subsets of E

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Specialization…..
• specialization allows classification of
an entity in subsets based on some
distinguishing attribute/property
• we may have several specialization of
same entity
• the subsets may have additional
attributes

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Inheritance
• there is inheritance of attributes
from superclass or superset
• the subclass/subset automatically
inherits attributes defined at
superclass/superset level
• thus, inheritance present in both
Generalization and specialization
• Direction important : bottom-up in
generalization, top-down in
Specialization
• Important to distinguish the two cases
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Aggregation
• for building complex entity from
existing entities (or existing entities
and relationships)
• two ways of defining complex entities
:
• create an attribute whose value is
another entity
• define an entity as containing a group of
related entities

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Examples :
• Work-order object (entity) defined as
consisting of entities Raw-material,
Tools and Workers;
• Work-order itself related with
Customer entity
• Aggregation notation not explicitly
provided in Extended E-R model

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 Work-order
Raw Material Tools

Worker

Customer

JobNo Quantity

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(ANSWER TO EXERCISE)

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Going from E-R to Relational Data
Model
Need to match
ER model concepts : entity, relationship, attribute
with
Relational model concepts : relation, attribute

entity Student ( rollno, name, …. )

Student

rollno name ….

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E-R to Relational …

1 1
1:1 Dept Mgr

DNo …… MName ……

DEPT (DNo , ………. , MName )

MGR (MName , ……, DNo )

also keys; in one or both

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E-R to Relational …

1 m
Bank Branch Client

ACno Name ……
BName Loc ……

BKBranch (BName , Loc , ………. )

Client (Name , ……, BName , Loc , ACno )
The relationship is included in the entity on ‘many’ side;
It includes primary key of entity on ‘one’ side and
Relationship attributes, if any
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E-R to Relational …

m m
Std Reg Course

R# …… Grade C# ……

STD (R# , ………. )

COURSE (C# , …… )
REG (R# , C# , Grade)

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Exercise: Airport database
• keeps track of airplanes, their owners,
airport employees and pilots
• Each airplane has a registration number,
is of a particular plane type and is
stored in a particular hanger. Each
plane type has a model number, capacity
and weight. Each hanger has a number,
capacity and location. The database
also keeps track of who owns which
plane. Persons have name, address and
phones. A person buys a plane on a
particular date and cost.
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Airport database….
• Each plane undergoes service many
times. A service information contains
date of work, nature, hours spent, cost,
etc. Pilots and employees are persons.
Pilots have a license number with
validity and salary. Employees have a
number, rank and salary. Each pilot is
authorized to fly certain types of planes.
Employees are involved in servicing of
planes.
• prepare E-R model
• convert to the relational model
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Exercises

Prepare E-R models and convert to

relational schema

• Railway Reservation
• 30 days in advance
• trains, stations, quotas, coaches
• passengers, tickets, wait-list, etc.

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Exercises…
• Old Car Mart
• buying and selling of old cars
• cars, purchases, sales – direct or
installment-wise
• service to sold cars, pre-sale repairs
• agents
• Cricket Database
• countries, players, teams
• matches, results, scores
• Prepare sample data

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Exercise : Portfolio
Management
• for individual investors
• investments are made in shares,
debentures, bonds, National saving
certificates, various schemes like
PPF, ELSS, mutual funds, etc.
• these may be acquired at public
issue time, purchased from market,
obtained as bonus (free), on ‘rights-
basis’, etc.

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Portfolio …
• some investments have regular
returns; e.g., yearly, 6-monthly,
etc. at fixed or announced rates
• these will be sold in market or re-
deemed, converted, etc.
• how, when and how much invested,
what returns already obtained are
important for the investor to know
how good are his investments. At
year end, he may wants to know
the market value of his
investments
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Portfolio …
• Exercise :
• Draw E-R diagram
• convert to relational scheme
• check if all relations are in 3NF

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QUALITY AND COMPLETENESS
CHECKS
• ENTITIES
• are they really entities? i.e., things of
real significance about which
information needs to be held
• Checklist
• singular meaningful name
• mutual exclusivity
• at least 2 attributes ( and < 8 )
• synonyms/homonyms
• full definition
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QUALITY AND COMPLETENESS
CHECKS…
• ENTITIES (Checklist…)
• volumetric information
• a unique identifier
• at least one relationship
• at least one business function to create,
update, delete, archieve and use the
entity
• changes over time
• it (functionally) determines its attributes
• is it too generic ?
• is it sufficiently generic ?
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QUALITY AND COMPLETENESS
CHECKS…
• ATTRIBUTES
• do they really describe the particular
entity ?
• Checklist
• singular meaningful name
• name not to include entity name
• only one value : no repeating / group
value
• complete metadata (format, allowed
values, etc.)
• is it really an entity
• value depends only on the entity (not on
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QUALITY AND COMPLETENESS
CHECKS…
• Relationships
• are they really significant associations ?
• Checklist
• each end named and capable of being
read accurately and sensibly
• each end has a degree and optionality
• is it redundant
• does it cater for time
• check arity
• Try populating the E-R model

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Entity/Process Matrix
• after building data model and
defining elementary processes,
create a matrix with entities along
columns, processes along rows
• fill entries indicating which processes
create entities, and which read,
update and delete the entities
• Also called CRUD (Create, Read,
Update and Delete) matrix

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Relationships between
diagrams
• FDD identifies processes
• These processes shown in DFDs
• DFDs give process dependencies with
data interactions added
• Data stores in DFDs are basis for E-R
diagram
• These three diagrams should be
consistent

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ENTITY LIFE HISTORY (ELH)
• depicts pictorially the events
affecting life of an entity from
creation to deletion
• dynamic history : state changes over
time are depicted
• events may be triggered by input or
time
• possible effects of events : creation,
deletion, modify attributes of
entities, relationships or both
• ELH Notation
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ENTITY LIFE HISTORY (ELH)..
• ELH Notation

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ENTITY LIFE HISTORY (ELH)..
• ELH is a tree with an
entity type as its root
• Event compositions
• sequence of E1 and E2

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ENTITY LIFE HISTORY (ELH)..
• Selection : e1 or e2
( one-of )

• iteration :

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ENTITY LIFE HISTORY (ELH)..
• example

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ENTITY LIFE HISTORY (ELH)..

• Parallelism between events may be shown :

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