221

The Entity-Relationship Model

• After completing this chapter, you should be able to

. explain the three phases of database design,

Why are multiple phases useful?
. evaluate the significance of the Entity-Relationship Model
(ER model) for DB design,
. enumerate the basic constructs of the ER model,
. develop ER diagrams (schemas in the ER model) for a
given application,
. translate ER models into equivalent (as far as possible)
relational models.
 222
The Entity-Relationship Model

Overview

1. Database Design Overview

2. Basic ER Constructs

3. Kinds of Relationships (Cardinalities)

4. Keys, Weak Entities

5. Translation into the Relational Model

 223
Database Design (1)

• Overall goal of DBMS usage: Efficiently develop programs to

support given real-world tasks.
• These programs need to store data persistently.
• To develop these programs, apply proven methods of software
engineering—specialized to support data-intensive programs.

Database Design
Database Design is the process of developing a
database schema for a given application.
DB design is a subtask of the overall software engineering
effort.
 224
Database Design (2)

• The specification of programs and data is intertwined:

. The schema should contain the data needed by the

programs.
. Programs are often easy to develop once the structure of
the data to be manipulated has been specified.

• Data, however, is an independent resource:

. Typically, additional programs will be developed later based

on the collected data.
. Also, ad-hoc queries will be posed against the DB.
 225
Database Design (3)

• During DB design, a formal model of the relevant aspects

of the real world (“mini world”, “domain of discourse”) must
be built.

Once the DB is up and running, questions will be posed against

the DB. Knowledge of these questions beforehand is important
input to the DB design process and helps to identify the
relevant parts of the real world.

• In some sense, the real world is the measure of correctness

for the DB schema: the possible DB states should correspond
to the states of the real world.
 226
Database Design (4)

• DB design is not easy for a variety of reasons:

. Expertise: The designer must become an expert for the

application domain or needs to talk to such experts.
Depending on the domain, these experts might not be used
to give a complete and formal account of their field.
. Flexibility: The real world typically permits exceptions and
corner cases. Does the DB schema need to reflect these?
. Size: Database schemas may become huge (in terms of
number of relations, attributes, constraints).

• Due to this complexity, DB design is a multi-step process.

 227
Database Design (5)

Three Phases of DB Design

O
1 Conceptual Database Design. Produces the initial
model of the mini world in a conceptual data model
(e.g., in the ER model).

O
2 Logical Database Design. Transforms the conceptual
schema into the data model supported by the DBMS
(e.g., the relational model).

O
3 Physical Database Design. Design indexes, table
distribution, buffer size, etc., to maximize performance of
the final system (subject of “Datenbanken II ”).
 228
Database Design (6)

• Why multiple design phases?

. Partition the problem, attack one sub-problem after the

other.
For example, during conceptual design there is no need to
worry about performance aspects or limitations of the
specific SQL dialect of the RDBMSs.
. DBMS features do not influence the conceptual design and
only partially influence the logical design.
Thus, the conceptual design work is not invalidated, if a
different DBMS is used later on.
 229
Example (1)

• ER schema in graphical notation:

ER schema in graphical notation:

Instructor teaches Course

Name Phone No Title

. This mini world talks about instructors and courses.

. Instructors teach courses.
. Instructors have a name and a phone number.
. Courses are numbered and have titles.
 230
Example (2)

A possible state of this mini world

Instructor Course
Noggg3 42232
ggWgWgg
W
ll • WWWWWW
lll +
Grust kWWName
WWWWW lllll Title XML
W • lRll
ggg RRRR
sggggg RRR
RRR
gggg3
7111 Phone 20727
RR ggggNo
• WWWWWW
WWW+
Title DB1
 231
The ER Model (1)

• The Entity-Relationship Model is often referred to as a

semantic data model, because it more closely resembles real
world scenarios than, e.g., the relational model.

. In the ER model, we model the concept of “Instructors.”

In the relational model we deal with names and phone
numbers.
. In the ER model, there is a distinction between entities
(objects) and relationships between such entities.
In the relational model, both concepts are represented by
relations.
 232
The ER Model (2)

• Proposed by Peter Chen (1976), today at Louisiana State

University (http://bit.csc.lsu.edu/∼chen/chen.html).

• The ER model comes with a graphical notation which helps

to establish quick overviews of database application schemas.

Such ER diagrams are also a great way to communicate

schemas to non-expert/future DB users.

• There are no “ER Model DBMS”.

Instead, we will describe a translation of ER model concepts

into the relational model.
 233
The Entity-Relationship Model

Overview

1. Database Design Overview

2. Basic ER Constructs

3. Kinds of Relationships (Cardinalities)

4. Keys, Weak Entities

5. Translation into the Relational Model

 234
Basic ER Model Concepts (1)

• Entities:
. An object in the mini world about which information is to
be stored. Examples: persons, books, courses.
Note: entities do not have to correspond to objects of
physical existence. Entities may also represent conceptual
objects like, e.g., vacations.
. The mini world that has to be modelled can contain only a
finite number of objects.
. It must be possible to distinguish entities from each other,
i.e., objects must have some identity.
Examples: entity book identified by ISBN number, entity
vacations identified by travel agency booking number.
 235
Basic ER Model Concepts (2)

• Attribute:

. A property or feature of an entity (or relationship, see

below).
Example: the title of this course entity is “Foundations of
Databases.”
. The value of an attribute is an element of a data type like
string, integer, date.
These values have a printable representation (which
entities have not).
 236
Basic ER Model Concepts (3)

• Relationship:

. A relation—not in the strict relational model

sense—between pairs of entities (a binary relationship).
Example: Grust (an entity) teaches (a relationship) the
course “Foundations of Databases” (an entity).
 237
ER Diagrams (1)

• Entity E:

• Attribute A of Entity Type E:

E A

• Relationship R between Entity Types E1 and E2 :

E1 R E2
 238
ER Diagrams (2)

• Relationships may also exist entities of the same type

(“recursive relationship”):
is precondition for

Course Precondition

requires knowledge of

• In this case, role names have to be attached to the

connecting edges.
In the ER model, role names may be attached to any kind of
relationship for documentation purposes.
 239
ER Diagrams (3)

• Relationships may have attributes, too:

Student solved Exercise

points

. This models the fact that a number of points is stored for

every pair of a student X and an exercise Y such that X
submitted a solution for Y .
 240
Graphical Syntax
O
1 An ER diagram contains
• boxes, diamonds, ovals, plus interconnecting lines.
O
2 Boxes, diamonds, and ovals are each labelled by a string.
• Box labels are unique in the entire diagram.
• Oval labels are unique for a single box or diamond.
• Diamond labels are unique for a pair of connected boxes.
O
3 Interconnecting lines are only allowed between
• box—diamond, box—oval, diamond—oval.
O
4 A diamond has exactly two connecting lines to boxes. There
may be any number of connections to ovals.
O
5 An oval has exactly one connecting line.
 241
ER Example

Modelling a Mini World: Define an ER Diagram

• Information about researchers in the database field is to be
stored.
• For each researcher, his/her last name, first name, e-mail ad-
dress, and homepage URI are relevant.
• Researchers are affiliated with universities and assume a cer-
tain position (e.g., professor, lecturer).
• Relevant university information are the name, homepage URI,
and country.
• Researchers publish articles (of a given title) in journals.
 242
The Entity-Relationship Model

Overview

1. Database Design Overview

2. Basic ER Constructs

3. Kinds of Relationships (Cardinalities)

4. Keys, Weak Entities

5. Translation into the Relational Model

 243
Cardinalities (1)

• General ER relationship:
E1 R E2

aaaaaaa •
• V\aVa\Va\Va\Va\a\a\a\\\\\\\
VVVVV \
• VVVVV •
V
aaaaaaaf •
• aaaaaafafafffffff
ffff
• ff
•
•
• \\\\\\\\\\\\\\
\•
 244
Cardinalities (2)

• In general, there is no restriction on how often an entity

participates in an relationship R.

. An entity can be connected to one entity of the other type,

to more than one, or it can have no R-partner at all.

• However, specific application semantics dictate to how many

E2 entities an E1 entity can be related:

Man is married to Woman

 245
Cardinalities (3)

• The ER model introduces the (min, max) notation to specify

an interval of possible participations in an relationship:

E1 (m1 , n1 ) R (m2 , n2 ) E2

. An entity of type E1 may be related to at least m1 and at

most n1 entities of type E2 .
. Likewise, m2 is the minimum number and n2 is the maximum
number of E1 entities to which an E2 entity is related
 246
Cardinalities (4)

• Extensions:
. “∗” may be used as maximum if there is no limit.
. (0, ∗) means no restriction at all (general relationship).
 247
Cardinalities (5)

Marriage

Man (0,1) is married to (0,1) Woman

“A man can be married to at most one woman and vice versa.”

Airport Locations

Airport (1,1) lies in (0,*) Country

“An airport lies in exactly one country. A country may have

arbitrarily many airports (and maybe none at all).”
 248
Cardinalities (6)

Derive cardinalities from verbal specifications

“Besides normal customers, the database may contain
customers who have not yet ordered anything.”
Order ( , ) from ( , ) Customer

Derive cardinalities from verbal specifications

“An order can contain several products.”
Order ( , ) for ( , ) Product
 249
Selecting Cardinalities

• Sometimes a sketch of a valid database state may help in

selecting the right cardinalities, e.g., for the state sketched on
slide 243, a viable cardinality for E1 —R may be (0, 3).

• Application knowledge might lead to weaker restrictions, in

this example (0, 5) or (0, ∗).

A cardinality (a, b) is weaker than (c, d) if a 6 c and d 6 b.

• In real applications, the cardinalities (0, 1), (1, 1), and (0, ∗)
are the most common and especially easy to enforce in the
relational model.
 250
Common Cases (1)

• Normally, the minimum cardinality will be 0 or 1, and the

maximum cardinality will be 1 or ∗.

. Thus, only the (0, 1), (1, 1), (0, ∗), (1, ∗) cardinalities are
common in practice.

• To understand a relationship, one must know the cardinality

specifications on both sides.

• The maximum cardinalities on each side are used to

distinguish between many-to-many, one-to-many /
many-to-one, and one-to-one relationships.
 251
Common Cases (2)

• Many-to-many relationships:
. Both maximum cardinalities are ∗ (the minimum
cardinalities are 0 or 1):
Many-to-many relationship

Student (0,*) takes (0,*) Course

. This is the most general/least restrictive case of a

relationship.
. When translated into the relational model, the
representation of many-to-many relationships requires an
extra table.
 252
Common Cases (3)

• One-to-many relationships:
. Maximum cardinality 1 on the “many” side and ∗ on the
“one” side:
One-to-many relationship

Instructor (0,*) teaches (1,1) Course

“One instructor teaches many courses, but each course

is run by exactly one instructor.”

. One-to-many relationships do not require an extra table in

an equivalent representation in the relational model.
 253
Common Cases (4)

• One-to-one relationships:
. Maximum cardinality 1 on both sides:
One-to-one relationship

Employee (0,1) is head of (1,1) Department

“Each department has exactly one department head,

some employees are the head of one department.”

• Note how mandatory or optional participation in an

relationship determines the minimum cardinalities.
 254
Cardinalities: Alternative Notations (1)

• Widespread variants of notations for cardinalities:

. Leave particpiation unspecified:

Cardinalities are either many-to-many (N:M),
one-to-many (1:N), or one-to-one (1:1).

One-to-many relationship

Instructor 1 teaches N Course

 255
Cardinalities: Alternative Notations (2)

• Sometimes found in software supporting visual ER diagram

development (e.g., in Oracle DesignerTM ):

One-to-many relationship

'& %$ teaches '& %$

! Instructor "#_ _ _ _ _ _ L ! Course "#
Lr
r
taught by

. The “crow foot” indicates the “many” side.

. Dashed lines indicate optional participiation.
. Relationship roles are given (for both sides).
 256
The Entity-Relationship Model

Overview

1. Database Design Overview

2. Basic ER Constructs

3. Kinds of Relationships (Cardinalities)

4. Keys, Weak Entities

5. Translation into the Relational Model

 257
Keys (1)

ER Key
A key K of an entity type E a is an attribute of E which
uniquely identifies the entities of this type. No two
different entities share the same value for the key
attribute. Composite keys are allowed.
K

E A1

A2

a Only entity types can have key attributes.

 258
Keys (2)

• The translation of ER schemas into relational schemas

requires the declaration of ER keys.

• If there is no natural key, add artificial identifiers (e.g.,

integers, remember attributes EMPNO, DEPTNO from Chapter 1)
which then represent the entities.
 259
Weak Entities (1)

• In many schemas, some entities describe a kind of detail that

cannot exist without a master (or owner) entity.
In such a case,

O
1 there is a relationship with cardinality (1, 1) on the
detail entity side, and in addition
O
2 the key of the master is inherited and becomes part of
the key of the detail entity.

Inv No Inv No
Invoice (1, ∗) has (1, 1) Position
Date Pos
 260
Weak Entities (2)

• Without a specific ER construct for this case, we would

require the following additional constraint:

. If two entities are in “has” relationship,

. then their attribute “Inv No” are required to have identical
values.
For example, invoice #12 cannot have position 2 in invoice
#42 as detail.

• Such constraints occur if an entity does not have a key by

itself, but it is only unique in the context of some other
(master) entity.
 261
Weak Entities (3)

• Note: In such cases, keys are always composite.

. Examples:
 A classroom is identified by a building and a room number.
 A section in a book is identified by a chapter and a section
title.
 A web page URI is composed of a web server DNS address
and a path on that server.
• There is also an existence dependency.
If the building is pulled down, the classrooms automatically
disappear. If the web server is shut down, all URIs on that
server cease to function.
 262
Weak Entities (4)
• In the ER model, such scenarios are modelled via weak
entities3 .
• In ER diagrams, weak entities and their identifying
relationships are indicated by double lines:

Inv No
Invoice (1, ∗) has (1, 1) Position Pos
Date

• For the weak entity, the inherited part of the key is not
shown.
3 Non-weak entities are also called strong entities.
 263
Weak Entities (5)

Modelling with weak entities

Model a set of online quizzes (multiple choice tests).

• Each quiz is identified by a title, each question within a

quiz is numbered, and each possible answer to a given
question is referenced by a letter.

For each question and answer, the associated text is

stored. Answers are classified into correct and incorrect
ones.

• What is the complete key for each of the occurring

entity types?
 264
The Entity-Relationship Model

Overview

1. Database Design Overview

2. Basic ER Constructs

3. Kinds of Relationships (Cardinalities)

4. Keys, Weak Entities

5. Translation into the Relational Model

 265
ER Diagram Example

CustNo

Customer Name

(0, ∗) Phone

places

(1, 1) Description

Order (0, ∗) for (0, ∗) Product

OrdNo Date Quantity ProdNo Price

 266
Step 1: Entities (1)

• Transforming an ER entity E:

O
1 Create a table for each entity.
The table name is E (conventionally: E + ’s’).
O
2 The columns of this table are the attributes of the
entity type.
O
3 The primary key of the table is the primary key of the
entity type.
If E’s key is composite, so will be the relational key. If E
has no key, add an artifical key to the table.
 267
Step 1: Entities (2)

Customers Orders
CustNo Name Phone OrdNo Date
10 Jones 624-9404 200 2/15/04
11 Smith 201 2/16/04
Products
ProdNo Description Price
1 Apple 0.50
2 Kiwi 0.25
3 Orange 0.60
 268
Step 1B: Weak Entities

Invoice (1, ∗) has Position

Inv No Date Pos

• When a weak entity is translated, the key attributes of the

owner entity are added as a key and foreign key:
Position (Pos, Inv No → Invoice, ...)
. This automatically implements the relationship.
. It makes sense to specify DELETE CASCADES for the foreign
key: if an invoice is deleted, all its positions will be removed
from the DB state, too.
 269
Step 2: One-To-Many Relationships (1)

• Transforming a relationship R:

O
1 If R has maximum cardinality 1 on one side, R is
one-to-many4 .
Example: Customer–(0, ∗)–places–(1, 1)–Order, “one
customer places many orders.”
O
2 In this case, add the key of the “one” side as a column
to the “many” table to implement R.
O
3 This column will be a foreign key referencing a row in
the table representing the related entity.

4 If R has maximum cardinality 1 on both sides, it is actually one-to-one,

see below.
 270
Step 2: One-To-Many Relationships (2)

Orders (OrdNo, Date, CustNo → Customers)

Orders
OrdNo Date CustNo
200 2/15/04 11
201 2/16/04 11

Customers
CustNo Name Phone
10 Jones 624-9404
11 Smith

• Convention: use relationship and role to name foreign key

column:
Orders (OrdNo, Date, placed by → Customers)
 271
Step 2: One-To-Many Relationships (3)

• Transforming a one-to-many relationship R:

O
4 If the minimum cardinality is 1 on the “many” side (see
example), null values are not allowed in the foreign key
column (column placed by in example).
If the minimum cardinality is 0, null values are allowed
in the foreign key column.
The foreign key is null for those entities that do not
participate in R at all.
 272
Step 2: Relationship Attributes

• To transform one-to-many relationship attribute(s), e.g.

Student (0, ∗) borrowed (0, 1) Book

Stud ID Date ISBN

. store the relationship attribute(s) together with the

reference to the related entity, e.g.

Books (ISBN, ..., borrowed by → Students, Date)

 273
Step 2: One-To-Many Relationships: A Variant

• One-to-many relationships R with cardinality (0,1) can be

translated into a table of their own:

borrowed by (ISBN→Books, Stud ID→Students, Date)

• The extra table holds the key values of the related entities
plus the relationship attributes.
• The key attributes of the side with the (0,1) cardinality
become the key of this relation.
“Each book can be borrowed only once at the same time.”
This does not model R correctly if the cardinality is (1,1)
Why?
 274
Step 3: Many-To-Many Relationships (1)

• Transforming a many-to-many relationship R:

O
1 If R has maximum cardinality ∗ on both sides, R is
many-to-many.
Example: Order–(1, ∗)–for–(0, ∗)–Product, “an order
contains many products, a product may be part of many
orders.”

O
2 R becomes its own table.
O
3 The columns of this table are the keys of both
participating entity types.
O
4 These columns act as foreign keys referencing the entities
and, at the same time, together form a composite key
for the extra table.
 275
Step 3: Many-To-Many Relationships (2)

• Transforming a many-to-many-relationship R:

O
5 Relationship attributes are added as columns to the table
representing R.

for (OrdNo→Orders, ProdNo→Products, Quantity)

Composite key?
Is it really necessary that both entity keys (here: OrdNo,
ProdNo) form a composite key for the relationship table?
 276
Step 3: Many-To-Many Relationships (3)

for (OrdNo → Orders, ProdNo → Products, Quantity)

for
OrdNo ProdNo Quantity
200 1 1
200 2 1
201 1 5

Orders Products
OrdNo Date CustNo ProdNo Description Price
200 2/15/04 11 1 Apple 0.50
201 2/16/04 11 2 Kiwi 0.25
3 Orange 0.60
 277
Step 3: Many-To-Many Relationships (4)

• Transforming a many-to-many relationship R:

. Note: Minimum cardinalties other than 0 for R cannot be

enforced by the relational model per se, i.e., in terms of key
constraints.
Order–(0, ∗)–for–(1, ∗)–Product ⇔ “Every product occurs in
at least one order.”
. If this is important to guarantee database consistency (valid
DB state), this constraint needs to be checked by the
application program or a general RDBMS constraint
mechanism.
 278
Step 4: One-To-One Relationships (1)

• Transforming a one-to-one relationship R:

Department (1, 1) led by (0, 1) Employee

DName ID

O
1 If R has maximum cardinality 1 on both sides, R is
one-to-one.
O
2 We can essentially transform as if R were one-to-many,
but additional key constraints are generated.
 279
Step 4: One-To-One Relationships (2)
• To which entity table shall we add the led by attribute to
represent the relationship?

Department (1, 1) led by (0, 1) Employee

DName ID

. Since we have Department–(1, 1)–led by (“every

department is led by exactly one employee”), it makes sense
to host the relationship in the Department table:
Department (DName, ..., led by → Employee)
. We may declare the foreign key led by as NOT NULL. (This
is not possible if led by is hosted in the Employee table.)
 280
Step 4: One-To-One Relationships (3)

Department (1, 1) led by (0, 1) Employee

DName ID

Department (DName, ..., led by → Employee)


• Note: led by now also is a key for the Department table.
led by is a key for table Department
Why is this the case in this example?
• This key constraint enforces the maximum cardinality of 1 (on
the Employee side).
 281
Step 4: One-To-One Relationships (4)

Man (0, 1) married (0, 1) Woman

MName Born WName Born

• Two variants:
O
1 Any of the two (not both!) entity tables may host the
married foreign key (null values allowed).
O
2 Translate the relationship into a table of its own:
married (MName → Man, WName → Woman)
A one-to-one relationship in an extra table
What would be the correct key(s) for table married?
 282
Step 4: One-To-One Relationships (5)

Customer (1, 1) has (1, 1) Card

SSN Name CardNo CreditLimit

• In order to enforce the minimum cardinality 1 on both

sides, the entity tables need to be merged:
CustomerCard (SSN, Name, CardNo, CreditLimit)

. No null values are allowed.

. Both, SSN and CardNo, are keys of this table. One is
selected as primary key, the other is an secondary key.
 283
Limitations (1)

• The following ER relationship cardinalities can be faithfully

represented in the relational model:

E1 (1, 1) R (0, ∗) E2 E1 (1, 1) R (0, 1) E2

E1 (0, 1) R (0, ∗) E2 E1 (0, 1) R (0, 1) E2

E1 (0, ∗) R (0, ∗) E2 E1 (1, 1) R (1, 1) E2

 284
Limitations (2)
• For all other cardinalities, the constraint mechanisms of the
relational model will not suffice.

Order (1, ∗) for (0, ∗) Product

No ID

“Every purchase order includes at least one product item.”

. Relational (foreign) key constraints cannot enforce the

minimum cardinality 1.
⇒ Apply the translation method for (0, ∗) cardinalities and
enforce the constraint in the application (or via an RDBMS
trigger whenever a tuple in table Order is inserted).