Chapter 2
Data Modeling
BLCN-534: Fundamentals of Database Systems
Chapter Objectives
• Explain the concept and practical use of data modeling.
• Recognize which relationships in the business
environment are unary, binary, and ternary
relationships.
• Describe one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many
unary, binary, and ternary relationships.
• Recognize and describe intersection data.
• Model data in business environments by drawing entity-
relationship diagrams that involve unary, binary, and
ternary relationships.
Data Modeling Basics
• Exploring the different ways that entities can relate to each
other as they always do in the real world
• Devising a way of recording, of diagramming, the entities
and the ways in which they interrelate in the business
environment
Entity-Relationship (E-R) Model
• A diagramming technique
• Diagrams entities (with
attributes) and the relationship
between the entities.
• There are many variations of E-R
diagrams in use.
E-R Model Entity (and its attributes)
Rectangular shape
Salesperson = a type of entity
Name of entity is in caps above the separator line.
E-R Model Entity (and its attributes)
• Entity type’s attributes are shown below the separator line.
• PK and boldface denote the attribute(s) that constitute the
entity type’s unique identifier.
Binary Relationships
• Simplest kind of relationship
• Relationship between two entity types
• A salesperson “sells” products or products are “sold” by
salespersons
Cardinality
• Represents the maximum number of entities that can be
involved in a particular relationship.
• One-to-One Binary Relationship
• One-to-Many Binary Relationship
• Many-to-Many Binary Relationship
One-to-One Binary Relationship
• 1-1
• A single occurrence of one entity type can be associated
with a single occurrence of the other entity type and vice
versa.
One-to-Many Binary Relationship
• 1-M
• Use “crow’s foot” to represent the multiple association.
• “many” = the maximum number of occurrences that can be
involved, means a number that can be 1, 2, 3, ... n.
Many-to-Many Binary Relationship
• M-M
• “many” can be either an exact number or have a known maximum.
Cardinality
Modality
• The minimum number of entity occurrences that can be
involved in a relationship.
• “inner” symbol on E-R diagram (“outer” symbol is
cardinality)
Cardinality & Modality
Intersection Data
• Describes the relationship between two entities.
• Used with many-to-many relationships.
• Represented on E-R diagram as an “associative entity”
Many-to-Many Binary Relationship with
Intersection Data
• For example, we know not only that salesperson 137
sold some of product 24013 but also how many units
of that product that salesperson sold.
Associative Entity
• Entities can have attributes; many-to-many relationships can
have attributes.
• Many-to-many relationship may be treated similarly to entities
in an E-R diagram.
Associative Entity
• The unique identifier of the associative entity is usually the
combination of the unique identifiers of the two entities in
the many-to-many relationship.
Unary Relationships
• Associate occurrences of an entity type with other
occurrences of the same entity type.
• Cardinality:
• One-to-One Unary Relationship
• One-to-Many Unary Relationship
• Many-to-Many Unary Relationship
Unary Relationships
Ternary Relationship
• Involves three different entity types.
Example Use Cases
• The General Hardware Company
E-R Diagram
• Customer Employee is a
dependent entity.
Good Reading Bookstores
World Music Association
Lucky Rent-A-Car
