MIT 12063

Database Design and Development

Lesson 03: Entity Relationship

Diagrams
By
S. Sabraz Nawaz
MSc in IS, PGD in IS, BBA (Hons) (Spl. in IS)
MAIS, MIEEE

Senior Lecturer in MIT,

Department of MIT, FMC, SEUSL
 ER - Model

• The entity-relationship (ER) data model allows us to describe

the data involved in a real-world enterprise in terms of objects
and their relationships and is widely used to develop an initial
database design

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 E-R Model (Entities)

• The two main constructs of the Entity-

Relationship model are Entities &
Relationships
• An entity is an object in the real world that is
distinguishable from other objects
o e.g. Lecturer, Student, Subject, etc.

• A collection of similar entities is called an

entity set
o e.g. Lecturers, Students, Subjects, etc. ENTITY

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 E-R Model (Entities...)

Example, an employee in a company database.

e1
e2
e3
e4 EMPLOYEES
e5
e6
…

Employee Entity set

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 E-R Model (Attribute)

• An entity is described using a set of attributes

o e.g. Name, NIC, etc.

• All entities in an entity set have the same attribute

Attribute

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 E-R Model (Attributes…)

Example: name, id, age & salary are attributes in

EMPLOYEES entity
salary
salary name
e1
dob e2 id
e3 dob
e4 EMPLOYEES
e5
e6
id
…

name
Employee Entity set
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 E-R Model (Attributes…)

• The attributes are said to be composite if they can be split.

Eg:- the entity Employee contains attribute 'name' which is a
composite one

name
EMPLOYEES

LastName FirstName

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 E-R Model (Attributes…)

• A multi-valued attribute of an entity is one which has

multiple values.
o Eg:- attribute phone numbers in employee entity.

EMPLOYEES

surname first_name phone

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 E-R Model (Attributes…)

• Some attributes that can be computed from other attributes are

called derived attributes.
o Eg:- age is derived from date of birth & current date

EMPLOYEES

dob age
name

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 E-R Model (Attributes…
another sample)

Customers

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 Practice

• Applying the attributes learned, draw an entity named Student

with most relevant attributes

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 E-R Model (Domain)

• Each attribute in an entity set has domain; possible values

o e.g. Age attribute of an employee has possible integer values from 18-60

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 E-R Model (Keys)

• A Key is a minimal set of attributes whose values uniquely

identify an entity in the set

salary name
e1
dob e2 id
e3
e4
e5
e6 Employee Entity set
…

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 E-R Model (Keys...)

• A candidate key is a combination of attributes that can be

uniquely used to identify a database record

• If a table has one or more candidate keys, one of these

candidate keys is selected as the table primary key and the rest
are called alternate keys
EMPLOYEES
• Primary key is underlined

id

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 E-R Model (Keys...)

• A key formed by combining at least two or more columns is

called composite key

• Always, the minimal set of attributes are considered for the

key.

• Therefore,
A key is a minimal set of attributes whose values uniquely
identify an entity in the set.

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 E-R Model (Relationship)

• A relationship is an association among two or more entities

o SaNa works for Department of MIT
o Thilan works for Department of MIT

• A collection of similar relationships is called a relationship

set

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 E-R Model (Relationship…)

Graphically,

EMPLOYEES works DEPARTMENTS

in

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 E-R Model (Relationship…)

• A relationship can also have attributes which are called as

descriptive attributes
• These are used to record information about the relationship
o E.g. SaNa works for MIS Department from November 2006. In the figure, this
is captured by the since in Works_In

nic dob

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 E-R Model (Relationship…)

1/2/97

111 1/2/99
D1
222
1/5/01
D2
333
1/2/87
D3
444
1/3/95

Departments
Employees
Work_in
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 E-R Model (Relationship…)

An instance of a relationship set is the set of relationships

1/1/91

111 3/3/93
D1
222 2/2/92
D2
333 3/1/92
D3
444
3/1/92

Departments
Employees
Work_in
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 E-R Model (contd.)

• Degree of a relationship is the number of participating

entities in the relationship.

• A relationship of degree two is called a binary relationship

(e.g. Works In)

• A relationship with degree three is called ternary.

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 E-R Model (contd.)

Ternary relationship

D1
111
D2 Departments
222

333 D3

444

Employees
L1

Work_in L2
Locations
L3
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 E-R Model (contd.)

Ternary relationship

works DEPARTMENTS
EMPLOYEES
in

LOCATIONS

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 E-R Model (contd.)

• The cardinality ratio for a binary relationship

specifies the number of relationship instances that an
entity can participate in.
• There are three types of cardinality ratios for binary
relationships.
o One-to-One
o One-to-Many (Many-to-One)
o Many-to-Many

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 E-R Model (contd.)

One-to-One relationship

Example: An employee manages at most one department. A

department can have only one manager managing it.

EMPLOYEES manages DEPARTMENTS

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 E-R Model (contd.)

One-to-Many relationship
For example, an employee works in at most one department.

Graphically,

EMPLOYEES works
DEPARTMENTS
in

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 E-R Model (contd.)

Many-to-Many relationship

Example: An employee can work on several projects. A project

can have many employees working on it.

works
EMPLOYEES PROJECTS
on

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 E-R Model (contd.)
• Participating constraint specifies whether the existence of an
entity depends on its being related to another entity via the
relationship type
• For example, if we specify that an employee must always work
for a department. Then we say that the relationship “works in” is
in total participation from Employee entity to Department entity

EMPLOYEES works in DEPARTMENTS

• If the relationship is not in total participation, then it is known as

in partial.
o For example, from DEPARTMENTS to EMPLOYEES

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 E-R Model (contd.)

• Entity types without any key attributes is called weak entity types.
• A weak entity is uniquely identified by considering some of its
attributes with the primary key of another entity called the
identifying owner.
• The attributes in the weak entity participating in the key are called
partial keys
• The owner entity and the weak entity participates in an identifying
relationship.
• The cardinality of the identifying relationship is either one-to-one
or one-to-many from owner entity to weak entity
• The weak entity must have total participation in the identifying
relationship
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 E-R Model (contd.)

Graphically (Weak Entity)

1 M
EMPLOYEE Policy DEPENDENTS

id name age

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 E-R Model (contd.)
• Entities participating in a relationship need not be distinct.
Such relationships are called recursive relationships.
• Each entity in the relationship play a role in the relationship. It
is recommended to state the role in recursive relationships.

manages

supervisor subordinate

EMPLOYEES
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Reference:
Ramakrishnan, R., & Gehrke, J. (2003). Database management
systems. Osborne/McGraw-Hill. (p. 24-50)

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