CS 3101 Database Systems Handout: Lab 1

Lab Content:
Introduction to database
- What is database
- Differences between database and files
- Entity-Relationships (ER) model
- Case Study for Students

What is database?
A database (DB) is a collection of a logically related persistent data, designed to meet the
information needs of an organization. Can be generated & maintained manually or automatically.

Data is what you store in database.

Information is what you retrieve from a database.

Differences between database and files

File-Based Systems (FBS)
FBS is a collection of application programs that perform tasks (e.g. reports) where each program
defines and manages its own data.

Major limitations of FBS:

• Data Redundancy and Inconsistency.
• Data isolation and separation.
• Data dependence.
• Incompatible file formats.
• Fixed Queries/Proliferation of application programs.
These limitations of the FBS approach attributed to two factors:
• The definition of data is embedded in the application programs, rather than being stored
separately and independently.
• There is no control over the access & manipulation of data beyond the imposed by the
application program.

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Database Systems (DBS)
DBS is a single large repository of data, defined once and managed using DBMS while used by
many application programs.

Major characteristics of DBS:

• Self-describing nature of a database system.
• Program-data independence.
• Sharing of data and multi-user transactions processing (guarantee Concurrency Control).
• Support of multiple views of the data.
Disadvantages of DBS:
• Complexity.
• Size.
• Cost (DBMS, Hardware, Staff, Training).
• Performance.
• Higher impact of a failure.

Entity-Relationships (ER) model

Entity-Relationship Model (E/R)
A picture is worth a thousand words
The Entity-Relationship model (ER) is a high-level description of the structure of the DB.
The Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a graphical model for representing the conceptual
model for the data.
A E/R models the DB using three element types:
- Entities
- Attributes
- Relationships

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ERD notations

ENTITY

WEAK ENTITY

RELATIONSHIP

IDENTIFYING RELATIONSHIP

ATTRIBUTE

KEY ATTRIBUTE

MULTI-VALUED

COMPOSITE

DERIVED

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 1 M
CARDINALITY RATIO

(min,max)
PARTICIPATIO CONSTRAINTS

Entities & Entity Type

Entity is an object that exists and is distinguishable from other objects.
e.g. person, company, course, university
Entity Type is a set of entities of the same type that share the same properties.
e.g. set of all persons, companies, trees, courses

STUDENT COURSE

Relationships & RelationshipTypes

• A relationship associates 2 or more entities.
• A relationship type is a set of associations between entity types.

STUDENT study COURSE

Degree of Relationship Type

Degree of relationship refers to number of participating entity types in a relationship.
• A relationship of degree two (2 entity types) are binary.
• A relationship of degree three (3 entity types) are ternary.

A relationship of degree two (2 entity types) are binary.

STUDENT study COURSE

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A relationship of degree three (3 entity types) are ternary.
e.g. registration of a student in a course by a staff.

STUDENT register COURSE

STAFF

Recursive Relationship
Recursive relationship is a relationship type where the same entity type participates more than
once in a different role. It is a unary relationship.
COURSE

require

Roles
Role indicates the purpose that each participating entity type plays in a relationship. (e.g.
prerequisite, requester)
COURSE

requester prerequisite

require

Role can be used when two entities are associated through more than one relationship to classify
the purpose of each relationship.

Manager manages Branch office

STAFF BRANCH
Staff member allocated Branch office

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 Attributes
Attributes are descriptive properties for an entity type or a relationship type.
All entities in one entity type have the same attributes.

Attributes of Entities

name DOB name

St_no Tel_no number hours

STUDENT study COURSE

Attributes of Relationships Start End

Object

Employee contract Company

All relationships in one relationship type have the same attributes.

Relationships can be distinguished not only by their attributes but also by their participating
entities.

Simple & Composite Attributes

Simple attribute is an attribute that have a single value with an independent existence.
e.g. salary, age, gender,...

Composite attribute is an attribute composed of multiple distinct components, each with an

independent existence.
initial
e.g. address (street, area, city, post code) FName
LName
name (First name, initial, Last name)
Area_cd
phone no. (area code, number, exchange no)
name DOB
no
St_no Tel_no
EX

STUDENT

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Single-valued & Multi-valued Attributes
Single-valued attribute is an attribute that holds a single value for a single entity. It is not
necessarily a simple attribute.
e.g. student_no, age, gender,...

Multi-valued attribute is an attribute that may hold multiple values, of the same type, for a
single entity.
initial
e.g. tel_no, degrees,… LName
FName

Area_cd
name DOB
no
St_no Tel_no
EX

STUDENT

Derived attribute is an attribute that represents a value that is derived from the value of a
related attribute,not necessarily in the same entity type.
name DOB
e.g. age is derived from date_of_birth
total_cost is derived from quantity*unit_price St_no
Tel_no

age
STUDENT

Keys
Candidate key(CK) is the minimal set of attributes that uniquely identifies an entity. It cannot
contain null.
e.g. student_no, social_security_no, branch_no…
Primary Key(PK) is a candidate key that is selected to uniquely identify each entity.
Alternate Key(AK) is a candidate key that is NOT selected to be the primary key.

Keys Example
Candidate Key

ELEMENT(symbol, name, atomic_no)

Primary Key Alternate Keys

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Choice of PK
Choice of Primary Key (PK) is based on:
• Attribute length
• Number of attributes required
• Certainty of uniqueness

Primary Key in ERD

St_no DOB

Keys
STUDENT
A key can be:
- simple key is a candidate key of one attribute.
e.g. student_no, branch_no…
- composite key is a candidate key that consists of two or more attributes.

e.g. STUDENT (Lname, Fname, Init)

CLASS (crs_code, section_no)
ADVERT (property_no, newspaperName, dateAdvert)

Composite Key in ERD

Section_no name
crs_code
hours

CLASS

Strong & Weak Entity Types

A strong entity type is NOT existence-dependent on some other entity type. It has a PK.
A weak entity type is an entity type that is existence-dependent on some other entity type. It
does not have a PK.

Weak Entity Type

• The existence of a weak entity type depends on the existence of a strong entity set; it
must relate to the strong entity type via a relationship type called identifying
relationship.
• The PK of a weak entity set is formed by the PK of its strong entity type, plus a weak
entity type discriminator attribute.

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 LName FName
dep_no FName
emp_no DOB

EMPLOYEE has DEPENDENT

Cardinalities
Cardinality ratio expresses the number of relationships an entity can participate in.
Most useful in describing binary relationship types.
For a binary relationship type the mapping cardinality must be one of the following types:
– One to one (1:1) – One to many(1:M)
– Many to one (M:1) – Many to many (M:N)

One-To-One Relationship
PROFESSOR chair DEPARTMENT
P1 r1 D002
P2
P3 r2 D001
A professor chairs at most one department; and a department is chaired by only one professor.

One-To-Many Relationship
PROFESSOR teach COURSE
P1 r1 C01
r2 C02
P2 r3 C03
P3 C04
A course is taught by at most one professor; a professor teaches many courses.

Many-To-One Relationship
CLASS require ROOM
C1 r1 R001
C2 r2 R002
C3 r3 R003
R004
A class requires one room; while a room can be scheduled for many classes.

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Many-To-Many Relationship
CLASS enroll STUDENT
C1 r1 S1
C2 r2 S3
C3 r3 S4
r5 S5
A class enrolls many students; and each student is enrolled in many classes.

Multiplicity
Multiplicity is the number (range) of possible entities that may relate to a single association
through a particular relationship.
It is best determined using sample data.
Takes the form (min#, max#)

STAFF oversee PROPERTY

S1 r1 P1 M
1
r2 P2 oversee
STAFF PROPERTY
S2 r3 P14 (0,10) (0,1)
S3 P6 (0,*)

Participation Constraints
Participation constraints determine whether all or only some entities participate in a
relationship.
Two types of participation:
- Mandatory (total)
- Optional (partial)

• Mandatory (total) (1:*): if an entity’s existence requires the existence of an associated

entity in a particular relationship (existence-dependent).
e.g. CLASS taught-by PROFESSOR
i.e. CLASS is a total participator in the relation.
A weak entity always has a mandatory participation constraints but the opposite not always true.

• Optional (partial) (0:*): if an entity’s existence does not require a corresponding entity in
a particular relationship. (Not existence-dependent).

e.g. PROFESSOR teach CLASS

i.e. PROFESSOR is a partial participator in the relation.

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Case Study for Students → Company:

• The company keeps track of a company’s → employees, departments, & projects.

• The company is organized into departments. Each department has a unique name, a
unique number, & a particular employee who manages the department. Each
department has a manager, we keep track of the start date when that manager
began managing the department.
• A department may have several locations.
• A department controls a number of projects, each of which has a unique name, a
unique number, & a single location.
• We store each employee’s name, social security number, address, salary, gender, &
birth date. An employee is assigned to one department but may work on several
projects, which are not necessarily controlled by the same department. We keep
track of the number of hours per week that an employee works on each project; we
also keep track of the direct supervisor of each employee.
• We want to keep track of the dependents of each employee for insurance purposes.
We keep each dependent’s first name, sex, birth date, &relationship to the
employee.

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 The ERD for the Company DB Application

Minit
Number

Fname Lname Gender

Location
Name
Name Address 1
N Works-for

Ssn

Employee Start-date No.of-Emp Department

Bdate 1 1
Manages
1
Salary

Hours Controls
Supervisee
Supervisor
N M N
1 Supervision N
Works-on

Project

Dep_of

N Location
Name
Number
Dependent
Name

Gender Relationship
Birth-date

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