CE 301T

CHAPTER 3
Data Modeling Using the
Entity-Relationship (ER) Model

Computer Engineering Depart

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
 Chapter Outline

 Overview of Database Design Process

 Example Database Application (COMPANY)
 ER Model Concepts
 Entities and Attributes
 Entity Types, Value Sets, and Key Attributes
 Relationships and Relationship Types
 Weak Entity Types
 Roles and Attributes in Relationship Types
 ER Diagrams - Notation
 ER Diagram for COMPANY Schema
 Alternative Notations – UML class diagrams, others
 Relationships of Higher Degree
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 1- 2
 Overview of Database Design Process

 Two main activities:

 Database design
 Applications design
 Focus in this chapter on conceptual database
design
 To design the conceptual schema for a database
application
 Applications design focuses on the programs and
interfaces that access the database
 Generally considered part of software engineering
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 3
Overview of Database Design Process

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 Methodologies for Conceptual
Design

 Entity Relationship (ER) Diagrams (This Chapter)

 Enhanced Entity Relationship (EER) Diagrams
(Chapter 4)
 Use of Design Tools in industry for designing and
documenting large scale designs
 The UML (Unified Modeling Language) Class
Diagrams are popular in industry to document
conceptual database designs

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 5

 Example COMPANY Database

 We need to create a database schema design

based on the following (simplified) requirements
of the COMPANY Database:
 The company is organized into DEPARTMENTs.
Each department has a name, number and an
employee who manages the department. We keep
track of the start date of the department manager.
A department may have several locations.
 Each department controls a number of
PROJECTs. Each project has a unique name,
unique number and is located at a single location.

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Example COMPANY Database
(Continued)
 The database will store each EMPLOYEE’s social
security number, address, salary, gender, and
birthdate.
 Each employee works for one department but may
work on several projects.
 The DB will keep track of the number of hours per week
that an employee currently works on each project.
 It is required to keep track of the direct supervisor of
each employee.
 Each employee may have a number of
DEPENDENTs.
 For each dependent, the DB keeps a record of name,
gender, birthdate, and relationship to the employee.
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 7
ER Model Concepts
 Entities and Attributes
 Entity is a basic concept for the ER model. Entities are
specific things or objects in the mini-world that are
represented in the database.
 For example the EMPLOYEE John Smith, the Research
DEPARTMENT, the ProductX PROJECT
 Attributes are properties used to describe an entity.
 For example an EMPLOYEE entity may have the attributes
Name, SSN, Address, gender, BirthDate
 A specific entity will have a value for each of its attributes.
 For example a specific employee entity may have
Name='John Smith', SSN='123456789', Address ='731,
Fondren, Houston, TX', Gender='M', BirthDate='09-JAN-55‘
 Each attribute has a value set (or data type) associated with
it – e.g. integer, string, date, enumerated type, …

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 8

Types of Attributes (1)
 Simple
 Each entity has a single atomic value for the attribute. For
example, SSN or Gender
 Composite
 The attribute may be composed of several components. For
example:
 Address(Apt#, House#, Street, City, State, ZipCode, Country), or
 Name(FirstName, MiddleName, LastName).
 Composition may form a hierarchy where some components
are themselves composite.
 Multi-valued
 An entity may have multiple values for that attribute. For
example, Color of a CAR or PreviousDegrees of a STUDENT.
 Denoted as {Color} or {PreviousDegrees}.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 9

Types of Attributes (2)

 In general, composite and multi-valued attributes

may be nested arbitrarily to any number of levels,
although this is rare.
 For example, PreviousDegrees of a STUDENT is
a composite multi-valued attribute denoted by
{PreviousDegrees (College, Year, Degree, Field)}
 Multiple PreviousDegrees values can exist
 Each has four subcomponent attributes:
 College, Year, Degree, Field

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 10

Example of a composite attribute

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Entity Types and Key Attributes (1)

 Entities with the same basic attributes are

grouped or typed into an entity type.
 For example, the entity type EMPLOYEE
and PROJECT.
 An attribute of an entity type for which each
entity must have a unique value is called a
key attribute of the entity type.
 For example, SSN of EMPLOYEE.

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Entity Types and Key Attributes (2)

 A key attribute may be composite.

 VehicleTagNumber is a key of the CAR entity type

with components (Number, State).

 An entity type may have more than one key.
 The CAR entity type may have two keys:

 VehicleIdentificationNumber (popularly called VIN)

 VehicleTagNumber (Number, State), aka license plate
number.
 Each key is underlined (Note: this is different from the
relational schema where only one “primary key is
underlined).
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 Entity Set
 Each entity type will have a collection of entities stored in
the database
 Called the entity set or sometimes entity collection
 Previous slide shows three CAR entity instances in the
entity set for CAR
 Same name (CAR) used to refer to both the entity type
and the entity set
 However, entity type and entity set may be given different
names
 Entity set is the current state of the entities of that type
that are stored in the database
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 14
Value Sets (Domains) of Attributes

 Each simple attribute is associated with a value

set
 E.g., Lastname has a value which is a character
string of upto 15 characters, say
 Date has a value consisting of MM-DD-YYYY
where each letter is an integer
 A value set specifies the set of values associated
with an attribute

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Attributes and Value Sets

 Value sets are similar to data types in most

programming languages – e.g., integer, character (n),
real, bit
 Mathematically, an attribute A for an entity type E

whose value set is V is defined as a function

A : E -> P(V)
Where P(V) indicates a power set (which means all
possible subsets) of V. The above definition covers
simple and multivalued attributes.
 We refer to the value of attribute A for entity e as A(e).

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 16

Displaying an Entity type
 In ER diagrams, an entity type is displayed in a
rectangular box
 Attributes are displayed in ovals
 Each attribute is connected to its entity type
 Components of a composite attribute are
connected to the oval representing the composite
attribute
 Each key attribute is underlined
 Multivalued attributes displayed in double ovals
 See the full ER notation in advance on the next
slide
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 17
NOTATION for ER diagrams

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Entity Type CAR with two keys and a
corresponding Entity Set

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Initial Conceptual Design of Entity Types
for the COMPANY Database Schema

 Based on the requirements, we can identify four

initial entity types in the COMPANY database:
 DEPARTMENT
 PROJECT
 EMPLOYEE
 DEPENDENT
 Their initial conceptual design is shown on the
following slide
 The initial attributes shown are derived from the
requirements description
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 20
Initial Design of Entity Types:
EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT, PROJECT, DEPENDENT

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 21

Refining the initial design by introducing
relationships

 The initial design is typically not complete

 Some aspects in the requirements will be
represented as relationships
 ER model has three main concepts:
 Entities (and their entity types and entity sets)
 Attributes (simple, composite, multivalued)
 Relationships (and their relationship types and
relationship sets)
 We introduce relationship concepts next

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 22

Relationships and Relationship Types (1)

 A relationship relates two or more distinct entities with a

specific meaning.
 For example, EMPLOYEE John Smith works on the ProductX
PROJECT, or EMPLOYEE Franklin Wong manages the
Research DEPARTMENT.
 Relationships of the same type are grouped or typed into
a relationship type.
 For example, the WORKS_ON relationship type in which
EMPLOYEEs and PROJECTs participate, or the MANAGES
relationship type in which EMPLOYEEs and DEPARTMENTs
participate.
 The degree of a relationship type is the number of
participating entity types.
 Both MANAGES and WORKS_ON are binary relationships.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 23

Relationship instances of the WORKS_FOR N:1
relationship between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 24

Relationship instances of the M:N WORKS_ON
relationship between EMPLOYEE and PROJECT

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Relationship type vs. relationship set (1)

 Relationship Type:
 Is the schema description of a relationship
 Identifies the relationship name and the
participating entity types
 Also identifies certain relationship constraints
 Relationship Set:
 The current set of relationship instances
represented in the database
 The current state of a relationship type

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 26

Relationship type vs. relationship set (2)

 Previous figures displayed the relationship sets

 Each instance in the set relates individual participating
entities – one from each participating entity type
 In ER diagrams, we represent the relationship type as
follows:
 Diamond-shaped box is used to display a relationship

type
 Connected to the participating entity types via straight

lines
 Note that the relationship type is not shown with an

arrow. The name should be typically be readable from

left to right and top to bottom.
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 27
Refining the COMPANY database
schema by introducing relationships

 By examining the requirements, six relationship types are

identified
 All are binary relationships( degree 2)
 Listed below with their participating entity types:
 WORKS_FOR (between EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT)
 MANAGES (also between EMPLOYEE, DEPARTMENT)
 CONTROLS (between DEPARTMENT, PROJECT)
 WORKS_ON (between EMPLOYEE, PROJECT)
 SUPERVISION (between EMPLOYEE (as subordinate),
EMPLOYEE (as supervisor))
 DEPENDENTS_OF (between EMPLOYEE, DEPENDENT)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 28

ER DIAGRAM – Relationship Types are:
WORKS_FOR, MANAGES, WORKS_ON, CONTROLS, SUPERVISION, DEPENDENTS_OF

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 29

Discussion on Relationship Types
 In the refined design, some attributes from the initial entity
types are refined into relationships:
 Manager of DEPARTMENT -> MANAGES
 Works_on of EMPLOYEE -> WORKS_ON
 Department of EMPLOYEE -> WORKS_FOR
 etc
 In general, more than one relationship type can exist
between the same participating entity types
 MANAGES and WORKS_FOR are distinct relationship
types between EMPLOYEE and DEPARTMENT
 Different meanings and different relationship instances.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 30

Constraints on Relationships
 Constraints on Relationship Types
 (Also known as ratio constraints)
 Cardinality Ratio (specifies maximum participation)
 One-to-one (1:1)
 One-to-many (1:N) or Many-to-one (N:1)
 Many-to-many (M:N)
 Existence Dependency Constraint (specifies minimum
participation) (also called participation constraint)
 zero (optional participation, not existence-dependent)
 one or more (mandatory participation, existence-dependent)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 31

Many-to-one (N:1) Relationship

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Many-to-many (M:N) Relationship

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Recursive Relationship Type
 A relationship type between the same participating entity
type in distinct roles
 Also called a self-referencing relationship type.
 Example: the SUPERVISION relationship
 EMPLOYEE participates twice in two distinct roles:
 supervisor (or boss) role
 supervisee (or subordinate) role
 Each relationship instance relates two distinct
EMPLOYEE entities:
 One employee in supervisor role
 One employee in supervisee role
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 34
Displaying a recursive
relationship
 In a recursive relationship type.
 Both participations are same entity type in

different roles.
 For example, SUPERVISION relationships

between EMPLOYEE (in role of supervisor or

boss) and (another) EMPLOYEE (in role of
subordinate or worker).
 In following figure, first role participation labeled
with 1 and second role participation labeled with
2.
 In ER diagram, need to display role names to
distinguish participations.
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 35
A Recursive Relationship Supervision`

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 36

Recursive Relationship Type is: SUPERVISION
(participation role names are shown)

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Weak Entity Types
 An entity that does not have a key attribute and that is identification-
dependent on another entity type.
 A weak entity must participate in an identifying relationship type with an
owner or identifying entity type
 Entities are identified by the combination of:
 A partial key of the weak entity type

 The particular entity they are related to in the identifying relationship

type
 Example:
 A DEPENDENT entity is identified by the dependent’s first name,

and the specific EMPLOYEE with whom the dependent is related

 Name of DEPENDENT is the partial key

 DEPENDENT is a weak entity type

 EMPLOYEE is its identifying entity type via the identifying

relationship type DEPENDENT_OF

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Attributes of Relationship types
 A relationship type can have attributes:
 For example, HoursPerWeek of WORKS_ON
 Its value for each relationship instance describes
the number of hours per week that an EMPLOYEE
works on a PROJECT.
 A value of HoursPerWeek depends on a particular
(employee, project) combination
 Most relationship attributes are used with M:N
relationships
 In 1:N relationships, they can be transferred to the
entity type on the N-side of the relationship

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 39

Example Attribute of a Relationship Type:
Hours of WORKS_ON

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Notation for Constraints on
Relationships
 Cardinality ratio (of a binary relationship): 1:1,
1:N, N:1, or M:N
 Shown by placing appropriate numbers on the
relationship edges.
 Participation constraint (on each participating
entity type): total (called existence dependency)
or partial.
 Total shown by double line, partial by single line.
 NOTE: These are easy to specify for Binary
Relationship Types.

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 41

Alternative (min, max) notation for
relationship structural constraints:
 Specified on each participation of an entity type E in a relationship
type R
 Specifies that each entity e in E participates in at least min and at
most max relationship instances in R
 Default(no constraint): min=0, max=n (signifying no limit)
 Must have minmax, min0, max 1
 Derived from the knowledge of mini-world constraints
 Examples:
 A department has exactly one manager and an employee can

manage at most one department.

 Specify (0,1) for participation of EMPLOYEE in MANAGES
 Specify (1,1) for participation of DEPARTMENT in MANAGES
 An employee can work for exactly one department but a
department can have any number of employees.
 Specify (1,1) for participation of EMPLOYEE in WORKS_FOR
 Specify (0,n) for participation of DEPARTMENT in WORKS_FOR

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 42

The (min,max) notation for
relationship constraints

Read the min,max numbers next to the entity

type and looking away from the entity type

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 43

COMPANY ER Schema Diagram using (min,
max) notation

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 44

Alternative diagrammatic notation

 ER diagrams is one popular example for

displaying database schemas
 Many other notations exist in the literature and in
various database design and modeling tools
 Appendix A illustrates some of the alternative
notations that have been used
 UML class diagrams is representative of another
way of displaying ER concepts that is used in
several commercial design tools

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 45

Summary of notation for ER diagrams

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 46

UML class diagrams

 Represent classes (similar to entity types) as large

rounded boxes with three sections:
 Top section includes entity type (class) name
 Second section includes attributes
 Third section includes class operations (operations are not
in basic ER model)
 Relationships (called associations) represented as lines
connecting the classes
 Other UML terminology also differs from ER terminology
 Used in database design and object-oriented software
design
 UML has many other types of diagrams for software
design

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 47

UML class diagram for COMPANY
database schema

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 48

Other alternative diagrammatic notations

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 49

Relationships of Higher Degree

 Relationship types of degree 2 are called binary

 Relationship types of degree 3 are called ternary
and of degree n are called n-ary
 In general, an n-ary relationship is not equivalent
to n binary relationships
 Constraints are harder to specify for higher-
degree relationships (n > 2) than for binary
relationships

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 50

Discussion of n-ary relationships (n > 2)

 In general, 3 binary relationships can represent different

information than a single ternary relationship (see Figure
3.17a and b on next slide)
 If needed, the binary and n-ary relationships can all be
included in the schema design (see Figure 3.17a and b,
where all relationships convey different meanings)
 In some cases, a ternary relationship can be represented
as a weak entity if the data model allows a weak entity
type to have multiple identifying relationships (and hence
multiple owner entity types) (see Figure 3.17c)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 51

Example of a ternary relationship

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Discussion of n-ary relationships (n > 2)

 If a particular binary relationship can be derived

from a higher-degree relationship at all times,
then it is redundant
 For example, the TAUGHT_DURING binary
relationship in Figure 3.18 (see next slide) can be
derived from the ternary relationship OFFERS
(based on the meaning of the relationships)

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 53

Another example of a ternary relationship

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 54

Displaying constraints on higher-degree
relationships

 The (min, max) constraints can be displayed on the edges

– however, they do not fully describe the constraints
 Displaying a 1, M, or N indicates additional constraints
 An M or N indicates no constraint
 A 1 indicates that an entity can participate in at most one
relationship instance that has a particular combination of the
other participating entities
 In general, both (min, max) and 1, M, or N are needed to
describe fully the constraints
 Overall, the constraint specification is difficult and possibly
ambiguous when we consider relationships of a degree
higher than two.
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 55
Another Example: A UNIVERSITY
Database

 To keep track of the enrollments in classes and

student grades, another database is to be
designed.
 It keeps track of the COLLEGEs, DEPARTMENTs
within each college, the COURSEs offered by
departments, and SECTIONs of courses,
INSTRUCTORs who teach the sections etc.
 These entity types and the relationships among
these entity types are shown on the next slide in
Figure 3.20.
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 56
UNIVERSITY database conceptual
schema

©2016 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe

Slide 3- 57
Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe
Chapter Summary

 ER Model Concepts: Entities, attributes,

relationships
 Constraints in the ER model
 Using ER in step-by-step mode conceptual schema
design for the COMPANY database
 ER Diagrams - Notation
 Alternative Notations – UML class diagrams, others
 Binary Relationship types and those of higher
degree.

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Data Modeling Tools (Additional
Material )
 A number of popular tools that cover conceptual modeling
and mapping into relational schema design.
 Examples: ERWin, S- Designer (Enterprise Application
Suite), ER- Studio, etc.
 POSITIVES:
 Serves as documentation of application requirements, easy
user interface - mostly graphics editor support
 NEGATIVES:
 Most tools lack a proper distinct notation for relationships
with relationship attributes
 Mostly represent a relational design in a diagrammatic form
rather than a conceptual ER-based design

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 59

 Some of the Automated Database Design Tools
(Note: Not all may be on the market now)

COMPANY TOOL FUNCTIONALITY

Embarcadero ER Studio Database Modeling in ER and IDEF1X
Technologies
DB Artisan Database administration, space and security management

Oracle Developer 2000/Designer 2000 Database modeling, application development

Popkin Software System Architect 2001 Data modeling, object modeling, process modeling,
structured analysis/design
Platinum Enterprise Modeling Suite: Erwin, Data, process, and business component modeling
(Computer BPWin, Paradigm Plus
Associates)
Persistence Inc. Pwertier Mapping from O-O to relational model

Rational (IBM) Rational Rose UML Modeling & application generation in C++/JAVA
Resolution Ltd. Xcase Conceptual modeling up to code maintenance
Sybase Enterprise Application Suite Data modeling, business logic modeling
Visio Visio Enterprise Data modeling, design/reengineering Visual Basic/C++

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 60

Extended Entity-Relationship (EER)
Model (in the next chapter)

 The entity relationship model in its original form

did not support the specialization and
generalization abstractions
 Next chapter illustrates how the ER model can be
extended with
 Type-subtype and set-subset relationships
 Specialization/Generalization Hierarchies
 Notation to display them in EER diagrams

Copyright © 2017 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 3- 61