Chapter Three
Relational Database Modeling
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Building Blocks(1)
Entities: Real world physical or logical object.
Attributes: Properties used to describe each Entity
or real world object.
Relationship: The association between the real
world objects (i.e. Entities.)
Constraints: Rules that should be obeyed or
followed while manipulating the data.
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Building Blocks(2)
The name given to an entity should always be a singular noun
descriptive of each item to be stored in it.
Attributes - The items of information which characterize and
describe these entities
Attributes are pieces of information about entities
Attribute name: Should be explanatory words or phrases.
In any business processing one object may be associated with
another object due to some event. Such kind of association is
what we call a relationship between entity objects. 3
Types of Attributes
Simple (atomic) Vs Composite attributes
Simple : Contains a single value (not divided into sub
parts):example a student's phone number is an atomic value of 10
digits, age, gender.
Composite: Divided into sub parts (composed of other attributes).
Eg. Address, Hobbies , name
Single-valued Vs multi-valued attributes
Single-valued : Have only single value (the value may change but
has only one value at one time): eg. A manufactured part can have
only one serial number, Name, Sex, Id. No., color of_eyes.
Multi-Valued: Type of attribute that can have more than one value
at a time. Eg. multiple degrees, Address, dependent-name
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Cont…
Stored vs. Derived Attributes
Stored : not possible to derive or compute. E.g. Name, Address
Derived: The value may be derived (computed) from the values of
other attributes. Ex. Age (current year- year of birth), GPA (grade
point-credit hours)
Null Values: NULL applies to attributes which are not applicable
or which do not have values.
Value of a key attribute can not be null.
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Degree of a Relationship
Degree of a relationship is the number of entities
participating in relationship.
The number of participating entities
Unary/recursive relationship- records of a single
entity are related with each other.
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Degree of a Relationship
Binary relationships- records of two entities are associated in a relationship.
Ternary relationship - tuples of three entities are associated in relationship.
n-nary relationship - tuples from arbitrary number of entity sets are
participating in a relationship
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Cardinality of a Relationship
(1)
Cardinality of a relationship refers to the number of tuples participating in
relationship.
One-to-One: one tuple is associated with only one other tuple. Building -to-
Location as a single building will be located in a single location and as a
single location will only accommodate a single Building.
One-to-Many- one tuple can be associated with many other tuples, but not
the reverse. E.g. Department-to-Student as one department can have
multiple students
• Many-to-One- many tuples are associated with one tuple but not the reverse.
E.g. Employee–to-Department: as many employees belong to a single
department.
• Many-to-Many- many tuple is associated with many other tuples.
• E.g. Student–to-Course as a student can take many courses and a single course can be
attended by many students. 8
Cardinality of a Relationship
(2)
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Relational Integrity
Domain integrity: No value of the attribute should be beyond
the allowable limits.
Entity integrity: In a base relation, no attribute of a Primary
Key can assume a value of NULL.
Referential integrity: If a Foreign Key exists in a relation,
either the Foreign Key value must match a Candidate Key value
in its home relation or the Foreign Key value must be NULL.
Enterprise integrity: Additional rules specified by the users or
database administrators of a database are incorporated. 10
Types of Keys- Super key
A set of one or more attributes that in group (collectively) can
identify an entity uniquely from the entity set.
an attribute or set of attributes that uniquely identifies a tuple
within a relation.
Eg. Employee(EmpID, EmployeeName, SSN, DeptID, DOB)
{EmpID + EmployeeName}, {EmpID, DOB}, {SSN}, {EmpID}
Super key stands for superset of a key.
A Super Key is a set of one or more attributes that are taken
Collectively and can identify all other attributes uniquely
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Types of Keys- Candidate Key
(1)
The candidate key is the sufficient and the necessary set of
attributes to distinguish an entity set.
Are individual columns in a table that qualifies for
uniqueness of each row/tuple.
Employee(EmpID, EmpName, SSN, DeptID, DOB}= EmpID, SSN
For a Primary Key and thus are Candidate keys.
Are super keys for which no proper subset is a super key
In other words candidate keys are minimal super keys
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Types of Keys- Candidate Key
(2)
Candidate key - an attribute or set of attributes that
uniquely identifies individual occurrences of an
entity type or tuple within a relation.
A candidate key has two properties:
Uniqueness
Irreducibility
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Types of Keys – Alternative
key
Candidate column other than the Primary column,
like if EmployeeID is set for a PK then SSN would be
the Alternate key.
Employee(EmpID, EmpName, SSN, DeptID, DOB}=
SSN
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Types of Keys - Composite key
Composite key: A candidate key that consists of two or
more attributes.
If a table do have a single column that qualifies for a
Candidate key, then you have to select 2 or more columns to
make a row unique.
Like if there is no EmployeeID or SSN columns, then you can
make EmployeeName + DOB as Composite Primary Key.
But still there can be a narrow chance of duplicate rows
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Employee(EmpID, EmpName, SSN, DeptID, DOB}
Cont…
Score table: to save scores of the student for various
subjects.
In the above picture we have a score table which stores the
marks scored by a student in a particular subject. In this table
student_id and subject_id together will form the primary key,
hence a composite key.
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Types of Keys - Primary key
(1)
Primary key: the candidate key that is selected to identify
tuples uniquely within the relation. Can not null value.
It is a candidate key that is chosen by the database designer
to identify entities with in an entity set.
Is the column you choose to maintain uniqueness in a table
at row level
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Types of Keys - Primary key
(2)
No two rows can have the same primary key value
Every row must have a primary key value
The primary key field cannot be null
Value in a primary key column can never be
modified or updated, if any foreign key refers to that
primary key.
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Types of Keys – Foreign Key
Foreign key: an attribute, or set of attributes, within one
relation that matches the candidate key of some relation.
A foreign key is a link between different relations to create
relationship or view.
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Types of Keys – Unique Key
Unique key is same as primary with the difference
being the existence of null.
Unique key field allows one value as NULL value.
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Relational Views (1)
Relations are perceived as a table from the users’ perspective.
There are two kinds of relation in relational database.
Base (Named) and
View (Unnamed) Relations.
The basic difference is on how the relation is created, used and
updated:
Base Relation: A named relation corresponding to an entity in
the conceptual schema, whose tuples are physically stored in
the database. 21
Relational Views (2)
View (Unnamed Relation): A View is the dynamic result of
one or more relational operations operating on the base
relations to produce another virtual relation that does not
actually exist as presented.
So a view is virtually derived relation that does not
necessarily exist in the database but can be produced upon
request by a particular user at the time of request.
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Schema
Database Schema (Intension): specifies name of relation and
the collection of the attributes (specifically the Name of
attributes).
Refer to a description of database (or intention)
Specified during database design
Should not be changed unless during maintenance
Schema Diagrams: convention to display some aspect of a
schema visually.
Schema Construct: refers to each object in the schema (e.g.
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Instances
Instance: is the collection of data in the database at a
particular point of time (snap-shot).
Also called State or Snap Shot or Extension of the
database.
Refers to the actual data in the database at a specific
point in time
State of database is changed any time we add, delete or
update an item.
Valid state: the state that satisfies the structure and
constraints specified in the schema and is enforced by
DBMS.
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Thanks !!!
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