ER Diagrams

Chapter 2: Entity-Relationship Model
Database System Concepts, 5th Ed.

©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan 
See www.db-book.com for conditions on re-use
Chapter 2: Entity-Relationship Model
Design Process
Modeling
Constraints
E-R Diagram
Design Issues
Weak Entity Sets
Extended E-R Features
Design of the Bank Database
Reduction to Relation Schemas
Database Design
Database System Concepts - 5th Edition, July 11, 2005 2 ©Silberschatz, Korth and Sudarshan
Modeling
A database can be modeled as:

a collection of entities,
relationship among entities.
An entity is an object that exists and is distinguishable from other
objects.
Example: specific person, company, event, plant
Entities have attributes
Example: people have names and addresses
An entity set is a set of entities of the same type that share the same
properties.
Example: set of all persons, companies, trees, holidays
Entity Sets customer and loan
customer_id customer name customerstreet customercity loan_number amount 
Relationship Sets
A relationship is an association among several entities

Example: 
Hayes depositor A-102 
customer entity relationship set account entity
A relationship set is a mathematical relation among n ≥ 2 entities, each
taken from entity sets
{(e1, e2, … en) | e1 ∈ E1, e2 ∈ E2, …, en ∈ En} 
 
where (e1, e2, …, en) is a relationship
Example:
(Hayes, A-102) ∈ depositor
Relationship Set borrower
Relationship Sets
An attribute can also be property of a relationship set.

For instance, the depositor relationship set between entity sets customer
and account may have the attribute access-date
Degree of a Relationship Set
Refers to number of entity sets that participate in a relationship set.

Relationship sets that involve two entity sets are binary (or degree
two). Generally, most relationship sets in a database system are
binary.
Relationship sets may involve more than two entity sets.
!Example: Suppose employees of a bank may have jobs

(responsibilities) at multiple branches, with different jobs at
different branches. Then there is a ternary relationship set
between entity sets employee, job, and branch
Relationships between more than two entity sets are rare. Most
relationships are binary.
Attributes
An entity is represented by a set of attributes, that is descriptive properties

possessed by all members of an entity set.
Example:
customer = (customer_id, customer_name,
customer_street, customer_city ) 
loan = (loan_number, amount )
Domain – the set of permitted values for each attribute

Attribute types:
Simple and composite attributes.
Single-valued and multi-valued attributes
! Example: multivalued attribute: phone_numbers
Derived attributes
! Can be computed from other attributes
! Example: age, given date_of_birth
Composite Attributes
Mapping Cardinality Constraints
Express the number of entities to which another entity can be

associated via a relationship set.
Most useful in describing binary relationship sets.
For a binary relationship set the mapping cardinality must be one of
the following types:
One to one
One to many
Many to one
Many to many
Mapping Cardinalities
One to one One to many

Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any
elements in the other set
Mapping Cardinalities
Many to one Many to many

Note: Some elements in A and B may not be mapped to any
elements in the other set
Keys
A super key of an entity set is a set of one or more attributes whose

values uniquely determine each entity.
A candidate key of an entity set is a minimal super key
Customer_id is candidate key of customer
account_number is candidate key of account
Although several candidate keys may exist, one of the candidate
keys is selected to be the primary key.
Keys for Relationship Sets
The combination of primary keys of the participating entity sets forms a

super key of a relationship set.
(customer_id, account_number) is the super key of depositor
NOTE: this means a pair of entity sets can have at most one
relationship in a particular relationship set.
! Example: if we wish to track all access_dates to each account by
each customer, we cannot assume a relationship for each access.
We can use a multivalued attribute though
Must consider the mapping cardinality of the relationship set when
deciding what are the candidate keys
Need to consider semantics of relationship set in selecting the primary
key in case of more than one candidate key
E-R Diagrams
Rectangles represent entity sets.

Diamonds represent relationship sets.
Lines link attributes to entity sets and entity sets to relationship sets.
Ellipses represent attributes
Double ellipses represent multivalued attributes.
Dashed ellipses denote derived attributes.
Underline indicates primary key attributes (will study later)
E-R Diagram With Composite, Multivalued, and
Derived Attributes
Relationship Sets with Attributes
Roles
Entity sets of a relationship need not be distinct

The labels “manager” and “worker” are called roles; they specify how
employee entities interact via the works_for relationship set.
Roles are indicated in E-R diagrams by labeling the lines that connect
diamonds to rectangles.
Role labels are optional, and are used to clarify semantics of the
relationship
Cardinality Constraints
We express cardinality constraints by drawing either a directed line (→),

signifying “one,” or an undirected line (—), signifying “many,” between the
relationship set and the entity set.
One-to-one relationship:
A customer is associated with at most one loan via the relationship
borrower
A loan is associated with at most one customer via borrower
One-To-Many Relationship
In the one-to-many relationship a loan is associated with at most one

customer via borrower, a customer is associated with several (including
0) loans via borrower
Many-To-One Relationships
In a many-to-one relationship a loan is associated with several (including

0) customers via borrower, a customer is associated with at most one
loan via borrower
Many-To-Many Relationship
A customer is associated with several (possibly 0) loans via

borrower
A loan is associated with several (possibly 0) customers via
borrower
Participation of an Entity Set in a Relationship Set
Total participation (indicated by double line): every entity in the entity set
participates in at least one relationship in the relationship set
E.g. participation of loan in borrower is total
! every loan must have a customer associated to it via borrower
Partial participation: some entities may not participate in any relationship in
the relationship set
Example: participation of customer in borrower is partial
Alternative Notation for Cardinality Limits
Cardinality limits can also express participation constraints
E-R Diagram with a Ternary Relationship
Cardinality Constraints on Ternary Relationship
We allow at most one arrow out of a ternary (or greater degree) relationship
to indicate a cardinality constraint
E.g. an arrow from works_on to job indicates each employee works on at
most one job at any branch.
If there is more than one arrow, there are two ways of defining the meaning.
E.g a ternary relationship R between A, B and C with arrows to B and C
could mean
1. each A entity is associated with a unique entity from B and C or
2. each pair of entities from (A, B) is associated with a unique C entity,
and each pair (A, C) is associated with a unique B
Each alternative has been used in different formalisms
To avoid confusion we outlaw more than one arrow
Design Issues
Use of entity sets vs. attributes 

Choice mainly depends on the structure of the enterprise being
modeled, and on the semantics associated with the attribute in
question.
Use of entity sets vs. relationship sets 
Possible guideline is to designate a relationship set to describe an
action that occurs between entities
Binary versus n-ary relationship sets 
Although it is possible to replace any nonbinary (n-ary, for n > 2)
relationship set by a number of distinct binary relationship sets, a
n-ary relationship set shows more clearly that several entities
participate in a single relationship.
Placement of relationship attributes
Binary Vs. Non-Binary Relationships
Some relationships that appear to be non-binary may be better

represented using binary relationships
E.g. A ternary relationship parents, relating a child to his/her father
and mother, is best replaced by two binary relationships, father and
mother
! Using two binary relationships allows partial information (e.g.
only mother being know)
But there are some relationships that are naturally non-binary
! Example: works_on
Converting Non-Binary Relationships to Binary Form
In general, any non-binary relationship can be represented using binary relationships
by creating an artificial entity set.
Replace R between entity sets A, B and C by an entity set E, and three
relationship sets:
1. RA, relating E and A 2.RB, relating E and B
3. RC, relating E and C
Create a special identifying attribute for E
Add any attributes of R to E
For each relationship (ai , bi , ci) in R, create
1. a new entity ei in the entity set E 2. add (ei , ai ) to RA
3. add (ei , bi ) to RB 4. add (ei , ci ) to RC
Converting Non-Binary Relationships
(Cont.)
Also need to translate constraints
Translating all constraints may not be possible
There may be instances in the translated schema that 
cannot correspond to any instance of R
! Exercise: add constraints to the relationships RA, RB and
RC to ensure that a newly created entity corresponds to
exactly one entity in each of entity sets A, B and C
We can avoid creating an identifying attribute by making E a
weak entity set (described shortly) identified by the three
relationship sets
Mapping Cardinalities affect ER Design
Can make access-date an attribute of account, instead of a relationship

attribute, if each account can have only one customer
That is, the relationship from account to customer is many to one, or
equivalently, customer to account is one to many
Weak Entity Sets
An entity set that does not have a primary key is referred to as a weak
entity set.
The existence of a weak entity set depends on the existence of a
identifying entity set
it must relate to the identifying entity set via a total, one-to-many
relationship set from the identifying to the weak entity set
Identifying relationship depicted using a double diamond
The discriminator (or partial key) of a weak entity set is the set of
attributes that distinguishes among all the entities of a weak entity set.
The primary key of a weak entity set is formed by the primary key of the
strong entity set on which the weak entity set is existence dependent,
plus the weak entity set’s discriminator.
Weak Entity Sets (Cont.)
We depict a weak entity set by double rectangles.

We underline the discriminator of a weak entity set with a dashed
line.
payment_number – discriminator of the payment entity set
Primary key for payment – (loan_number, payment_number)
Weak Entity Sets (Cont.)
Note: the primary key of the strong entity set is not explicitly stored
with the weak entity set, since it is implicit in the identifying
relationship.
If loan_number were explicitly stored, payment could be made a
strong entity, but then the relationship between payment and loan
would be duplicated by an implicit relationship defined by the
attribute loan_number common to payment and loan
More Weak Entity Set Examples
In a university, a course is a strong entity and a course_offering can

be modeled as a weak entity
The discriminator of course_offering would be semester (including
year) and section_number (if there is more than one section)
If we model course_offering as a strong entity we would model
course_number as an attribute.
Then the relationship with course would be implicit in the
course_number attribute
Extended E-R Features: Specialization
Top-down design process; we designate subgroupings within an entity set

that are distinctive from other entities in the set.
These subgroupings become lower-level entity sets that have attributes or
participate in relationships that do not apply to the higher-level entity set.
Depicted by a triangle component labeled ISA (E.g. customer “is a”
person).
Attribute inheritance – a lower-level entity set inherits all the attributes
and relationship participation of the higher-level entity set to which it is
linked.
Specialization Example
Extended ER Features: Generalization
A bottom-up design process – combine a number of entity sets

that share the same features into a higher-level entity set.
Specialization and generalization are simple inversions of each
other; they are represented in an E-R diagram in the same way.
The terms specialization and generalization are used
interchangeably.
Specialization and Generalization (Cont.)
Can have multiple specializations of an entity set based on different

features.
E.g. permanent_employee vs. temporary_employee, in addition to officer
vs. secretary vs. teller
Each particular employee would be
a member of one of permanent_employee or temporary_employee,
and also a member of one of officer, secretary, or teller
The ISA relationship also referred to as superclass - subclass
relationship
Design Constraints on a Specialization/
Generalization
Constraint on which entities can be members of a given lower-level
entity set.
condition-defined
! Example: all customers over 65 years are members of senior-
citizen entity set; senior-citizen ISA person.
user-defined
Constraint on whether or not entities may belong to more than one
lower-level entity set within a single generalization.
Disjoint
! an entity can belong to only one lower-level entity set
! Noted in E-R diagram by writing disjoint next to the ISA
triangle
Overlapping
! an entity can belong to more than one lower-level entity set
Design Constraints on a Specialization/
Generalization (Cont.)
Completeness constraint -- specifies whether or not an entity
in the higher-level entity set must belong to at least one of the
lower-level entity sets within a generalization.
total : an entity must belong to one of the lower-level entity
sets
partial: an entity need not belong to one of the lower-level
entity sets
Aggregation
Consider the ternary relationship works_on, which we saw earlier

Suppose we want to record managers for tasks performed by an  
employee at a branch
Aggregation (Cont.)
Relationship sets works_on and manages represent overlapping information

Every manages relationship corresponds to a works_on relationship
However, some works_on relationships may not correspond to any
manages relationships
! So we can’t discard the works_on relationship
Eliminate this redundancy via aggregation

Treat relationship as an abstract entity
Allows relationships between relationships
Abstraction of relationship into new entity
Without introducing redundancy, the following diagram represents:
An employee works on a particular job at a particular branch
An employee, branch, job combination may have an associated manager
E-R Diagram With Aggregation
E-R Design Decisions
The use of an attribute or entity set to represent an object.

Whether a real-world concept is best expressed by an entity set or a
relationship set.
The use of a ternary relationship versus a pair of binary
relationships.
The use of a strong or weak entity set.
The use of specialization/generalization – contributes to modularity
in the design.
The use of aggregation – can treat the aggregate entity set as a
single unit without concern for the details of its internal structure.
E-R Diagram for a Banking Enterprise
Summary of Symbols Used in E-R Notation
Summary of Symbols (Cont.)
Reduction to Relation Schemas
Primary keys allow entity sets and relationship sets to be

expressed uniformly as relation schemas that represent the
contents of the database.
A database which conforms to an E-R diagram can be
represented by a collection of schemas.
For each entity set and relationship set there is a unique
schema that is assigned the name of the corresponding entity
set or relationship set.
Each schema has a number of columns (generally
corresponding to attributes), which have unique names.
Representing Entity Sets as Schemas
A strong entity set reduces to a schema with the same attributes.

A weak entity set becomes a table that includes a column for the
primary key of the identifying strong entity set
payment =
( loan_number, payment_number, payment_date, payment_amount )
Representing Relationship Sets as Schemas
A many-to-many relationship set is represented as a schema with
attributes for the primary keys of the two participating entity sets,
and any descriptive attributes of the relationship set.
Example: schema for relationship set borrower
borrower = (customer_id, loan_number )
Redundancy of Schemas
Many-to-one and one-to-many relationship sets that are total on the

many-side can be represented by adding an extra attribute to the
“many” side, containing the primary key of the “one” side
Example: Instead of creating a schema for relationship set
account_branch, add an attribute branch_name to the schema
arising from entity set account
Redundancy of Schemas (Cont.)
For one-to-one relationship sets, either side can be chosen to act as the
“many” side
That is, extra attribute can be added to either of the tables
corresponding to the two entity sets
If participation is partial on the “many” side, replacing a schema by an
extra attribute in the schema corresponding to the “many” side could
result in null values
The schema corresponding to a relationship set linking a weak entity set
to its identifying strong entity set is redundant.
Example: The payment schema already contains the attributes that
would appear in the loan_payment schema (i.e., loan_number and
payment_number).
Composite and Multivalued Attributes
Composite attributes are flattened out by creating a separate attribute for
each component attribute
Example: given entity set customer with composite attribute name with
component attributes first_name and last_name the schema
corresponding to the entity set has two attributes 
name.first_name and name.last_name
A multivalued attribute M of an entity E is represented by a separate
schema EM
Schema EM has attributes corresponding to the primary key of E and
an attribute corresponding to multivalued attribute M
Example: Multivalued attribute dependent_names of employee is
represented by a schema: 
employee_dependent_names = ( employee_id, dname)
Each value of the multivalued attribute maps to a separate tuple of the
relation on schema EM
! For example, an employee entity with primary key 123-45-6789
and dependents Jack and Jane maps to two tuples:  
(123-45-6789 , Jack) and (123-45-6789 , Jane)
Representing Specialization via Schemas
Method 1:
Form a schema for the higher-level entity
Form a schema for each lower-level entity set, include primary
key of higher-level entity set and local attributes 
 
schema attributes 
person name, street, city  
customer name, credit_rating 
employee name, salary
Drawback: getting information about, an employee requires
accessing two relations, the one corresponding to the low-level
schema and the one corresponding to the high-level schema
Representing Specialization as Schemas (Cont.)
Method 2:
Form a schema for each entity set with all local and inherited attributes
 
schema attributes 
person name, street, city  
customer name, street, city, credit_rating 
employee name, street, city, salary 
If specialization is total, the schema for the generalized entity set (person)
not required to store information
! Can be defined as a “view” relation containing union of specialization
relations
! But explicit schema may still be needed for foreign key constraints
Drawback: street and city may be stored redundantly for people who are
both customers and employees
Schemas Corresponding to Aggregation
To represent aggregation, create a schema containing

primary key of the aggregated relationship,
the primary key of the associated entity set
any descriptive attributes
Schemas Corresponding to Aggregation (Cont.)
For example, to represent aggregation manages between
relationship works_on and entity set manager, create a schema 
manages (employee_id, branch_name, title, manager_name)

Schema works_on is redundant provided we are willing to store null
values for attribute manager_name in relation on schema manages
Figure 6.31

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Chapter 2: Entity-Relationship Model

Database System Concepts, 5th Ed.

A database can be modeled as:

customer_id customer name customerstreet customercity loan_number amount

A relationship is an association among several entities

An attribute can also be property of a relationship set.

Refers to number of entity sets that participate in a relationship set.

!Example: Suppose employees of a bank may have jobs

An entity is represented by a set of attributes, that is descriptive properties

Domain – the set of permitted values for each attribute

Express the number of entities to which another entity can be

One to one One to many

Many to one Many to many

A super key of an entity set is a set of one or more attributes whose

The combination of primary keys of the participating entity sets forms a

Rectangles represent entity sets.

Entity sets of a relationship need not be distinct

We express cardinality constraints by drawing either a directed line (→),

In the one-to-many relationship a loan is associated with at most one

In a many-to-one relationship a loan is associated with several (including

A customer is associated with several (possibly 0) loans via

Cardinality limits can also express participation constraints

Use of entity sets vs. attributes

Some relationships that appear to be non-binary may be better

Can make access-date an attribute of account, instead of a relationship

We depict a weak entity set by double rectangles.

In a university, a course is a strong entity and a course_offering can

Top-down design process; we designate subgroupings within an entity set

A bottom-up design process – combine a number of entity sets

Can have multiple specializations of an entity set based on different

Consider the ternary relationship works_on, which we saw earlier

Relationship sets works_on and manages represent overlapping information

Eliminate this redundancy via aggregation

The use of an attribute or entity set to represent an object.

Primary keys allow entity sets and relationship sets to be

A strong entity set reduces to a schema with the same attributes.

Many-to-one and one-to-many relationship sets that are total on the

To represent aggregation, create a schema containing

manages (employee_id, branch_name, title, manager_name)

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customer_id customer name customerstreet customercity loan_number amount 

Use of entity sets vs. attributes 