Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Attribute - property or characteristic of an entity type (often corresponds to a field in a table) Relationship instance link between entities (corresponds to primary key-foreign key equivalencies in related tables)
Relationship type category of relationshiplink between entity types
Figure 3-2 -- Basic E-R Notation A special entity that is also a relationship
Entity symbols
Attribute symbols
Relationship symbols
Inappropriate entities
System user
System output
Appropriate entities
Attributes
Attribute - property or characteristic of an entity type Classifications of attributes:
Composite Attribute Multivalued Attribute Derived Attributes Identifier Attributes
Attributes
Composite Attribute
A composite attribute consists of a group of values from more than one domain. For example, the Address attribute consists of several domains such as house number, street number, city, country
Multivalued Attribute
An attribute that may take on more than one value for each entity instance
Attributes
Derived Attributes Derived attributes are attributes whose values are generated from other attributes using calculations, algorithms or procedures. For example, Account Balance is derived by subtracting Total Debit from Total Credit.
Attributes
Candidate Key
An attribute ( or combination of attribute) that uniquely identifies each instance of an entity type.
Identifier
A candidate key that has been selected as the unique, identifying characteristic for an entity type
Attributes
Identifier Attributes 1.Primary Key Identifier
The primary key of an entity unambiguously distinguishes between occurrences of the entity. It is a unique identifier comprised of one or more attributes of the entity. Each occurrence of an entity has one value for its primary key. Each entity must be assigned a primary key. An entity can have only one primary key.
Attributes
Identifier Attributes 2. Foreign Key Identifier
Foreign keys (also known as referential attributes) are attributes that define relationships between entities. The attributes of a foreign key in one entity are the attributes of a primary key in another entity. For example, Department ID is the primary key of Department and Department ID is a foreign key of Employee defining the relationship "Employee works for Department."
Characteristics of Identifiers
Will not change in value Will not be null No intelligent identifiers (e.g. containing locations or people that might change) Substitute new, simple keys for long, composite keys
Figure 3-8 -- Entity with a multivalued attribute (Skill) and derived attribute (Years_Employed)
Derived
from date employed and current date
Multivalued:
an employee can have more than one skill
Degree of Relationships
Degree of a Relationship is the number of entity types that participate in it Unary Relationship Binary Relationship Ternary Relationship
Cardinality of Relationships
Cardinality constraint - Specifies the number of instances of one entity that can (or must) be associated with each instance of another entity. One to One
Each entity in the relationship will have exactly one related entity
One to Many
An entity on one side of the relationship can have many related entities, but an entity on the other side will have a maximum of one related entity
Many to Many
Entities on both sides of the relationship can have many related entities on the other side
Cardinality Constraints
Minimum Cardinality
If zero, then optional If one or more, then mandatory
Maximum Cardinality
The maximum number
Here, the date completed attribute pertains specifically to the employees completion of a courseit is an attribute of the relationship
Figure 3-13a A unary relationship with an attribute. This has a many-to-many relationship
Examples of multiple relationships entities can be related to one another in more than one way Figure 3-21a Employees and departments
Weak entity
dependent on a strong entitycannot exist on its own Does not have a unique identifier represented with double-line rectangle
Identifying relationship
links strong entities to weak entities represented with double line diamond
Strong entity
Identifying relationship
Weak entity
Associative Entities
Its an entity it has attributes AND its a
Associative entity involves a rectangle with a diamond inside. Note that the many-to-many cardinality symbols face toward the associative entity and not toward the other entities
ER Notation
There is no standard for representing data objects in ER diagrams. Each modeling methodology uses its own notation. The original notation used by Chen is widely used in academics texts and journals but rarely seen in either CASE tools or publications by nonacademics. Today, there are a number of notations used, among the more common are Bachman, crow's foot, and IDEFIX.
ER Notation