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ER Model: Component of ER Diagram

The document defines the Entity-Relationship (ER) model and its components used for conceptual database design. The ER model uses entities, attributes, and relationships to model real-world objects and their associations. Entities can be people, places, or objects and are represented as rectangles. Attributes provide additional information about entities and are shown as ellipses. Relationships define how entities are connected and are depicted as diamonds. The document also outlines different types of relationships like one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many.

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145 views9 pages

ER Model: Component of ER Diagram

The document defines the Entity-Relationship (ER) model and its components used for conceptual database design. The ER model uses entities, attributes, and relationships to model real-world objects and their associations. Entities can be people, places, or objects and are represented as rectangles. Attributes provide additional information about entities and are shown as ellipses. Relationships define how entities are connected and are depicted as diamonds. The document also outlines different types of relationships like one-to-one, one-to-many, many-to-one, and many-to-many.

Uploaded by

prerana shete
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ER model

o ER model stands for an Entity-Relationship model. It is a high-level data model. This model is used to

define the data elements and relationship for a specified system.

o It develops a conceptual design for the database. It also develops a very simple and easy to design

view of data.

o In ER modeling, the database structure is portrayed as a diagram called an entity-relationship diagram.

For example, Suppose we design a school database. In this database, the student will be an entity

with attributes like address, name, id, age, etc. The address can be another entity with attributes like

city, street name, pin code, etc and there will be a relationship between them.

Component of ER Diagram
1. Entity:

An entity may be any object, class, person or place. In the ER diagram, an entity can be represented as

rectangles.

Consider an organization as an example- manager, product, employee, department etc. can be taken as an entity.

a. Weak Entity

An entity that depends on another entity called a weak entity. The weak entity doesn't contain any key
attribute of its own. The weak entity is represented by a double rectangle.

2. Attribute

The attribute is used to describe the property of an entity. Eclipse is used to represent an attribute.

For example, id, age, contact number, name, etc. can be attributes of a student.

a. Key Attribute

The key attribute is used to represent the main characteristics of an entity. It represents a primary key.

The key attribute is represented by an ellipse with the text underlined.


b. Composite Attribute

An attribute that composed of many other attributes is known as a composite attribute.

The composite attribute is represented by an ellipse, and those ellipses are connected with an ellipse.

c. Multivalued Attribute

An attribute can have more than one value. These attributes are known as a multivalued attribute.

The double oval is used to represent multivalued attribute.

For example, a student can have more than one phone number.
d. Derived Attribute

An attribute that can be derived from other attribute is known as a derived attribute.

It can be represented by a dashed ellipse.

For example, A person's age changes over time and can be derived from another attribute like Date of birth.

3. Relationship

A relationship is used to describe the relation between entities. Diamond or rhombus is used to

represent the relationship.


Types of relationship are as follows:

a. One-to-One Relationship

When only one instance of an entity is associated with the relationship, then it is known as one to one

relationship.

For example, A female can marry to one male, and a male can marry to one female.

b. One-to-many relationship

When only one instance of the entity on the left, and more than one instance of an entity on the right associates

with the relationship then this is known as a one-to-many relationship.

For example, Scientist can invent many inventions, but the invention is done by the only specific scientist.

c. Many-to-one relationship

When more than one instance of the entity on the left, and only one instance of an entity on the

right associates with the relationship then it is known as a many-to-one relationship.

For example, Student enrolls for only one course, but a course can have many students.
d. Many-to-many relationship

When more than one instance of the entity on the left, and more than one instance of an entity on the

right associates with the relationship then it is known as a many-to-many relationship.

For example, Employee can assign by many projects and project can have many employees.

Notation of ER diagram
Database can be represented using the notations. In ER diagram, many notations are used to

express the cardinality. These notations are as follows:


Fig: Notations of ER diagram

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