Database Systems

Data Modeling

Introduction

In designing databases, we begin by

examining the entities that are of
importance to an organization.
A conceptual data model is created to
capture the overall structure of the
entities and the relationships among
them

Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD)

Most commonly used conceptual

model
Consists of:

Entities
Relationships among entities
Attributes of both the entities and their
relationships

Entity

An entity is a
person, place, thing,
or event which an
organization wishes
to maintain data
about
Examples:

Student
Subject
Instructor

An entity is
represented by a
rectangle

STUDENT

SUBJECT

Attributes

An attribute is a
characteristic of an
entity
Sample attributes
of the STUDENT
entity

Name
ID Number
Address
Birthday

An attribute is
represented by an
ellipse

Name

ID_Num

STUDENT

Address

Birthday

Value of an Attribute

The value of the type of characteristic

that an attribute represents
Example:

Attribute: Name
Values:

Juan De la Cruz
Brian Adams

The ERD contains only the attribute

type and not its values
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Comparison of Attribute Types

Multivalued vs. single-valued

Composite vs. simple (or atomic)
Derived vs. stored

Multivalued Attributes

Attributes having
more than one
value for each
entity instance
Example:

Hobby - a student
may have more
than one hobbies

A multivalued
attribute is
represented by a
double ellipse
Hobby
STUDENT

Composite Attributes

An attribute
broken into
component parts

Derived Attribute

An attributes whose values can be

calculated from related attribute values

Derived
from date employed and
current date

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Identification of Entity Instances

The relational model uses primary

keys to link related entities together
Primary key - an attribute or a
combination of attributes that uniquely
identifies an instance of an entity
Represented by underlining the
attribute(s) involved
ID_Num
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Characteristics of a Primary Key

Unique - no two entity instances can

have the same value for the primary
key attribute
Not null
Must not change over time

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Relationship

A relationship is a
natural association
between the
instances of one or
more entities
Example:

enrolls - a student
enrolls in a subject

A relationship is
represented by a
diamond-shaped
symbol

STUDEN
T

enrolls

SUBJEC
T

Relationships may
also have attributes
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Types of Relationship

Three (3) possible types of relationship

can exist between the occurrences of
related entity types:

One-to-one relationship
One-to-many relationship
Many-to-many relationship

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Cardinality

The number of instances that is

associated between a pair of entity types
The cardinality of the association from A
to B is the maximum number of
occurrences of B that can be associated
with A
A pair of associations can exist between
any two entities:

Ex. from A to B and from B to A

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Examples of Cardinality

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