Different notations used for ER Diagram in

DBMS –
Below picture clearly depicts about different notations we need while using
ER diagram in DBMS. They are –

Components of ER Diagram in dbms

As above image describes,
 Rectangle  – It represents entity in the ER Model.
 Ellipse  – It represents attribute in the ER Model.
 Diamond  – It represents relationship between entity and attribute.
 Line  – It links attribute(s) to entity set(s) and entity set(s) to relationship
set(s).
 Doubles Ellipses  – It represents multivalued attributes.
 Dashed Ellipses  – It denotes derived attributes.
 Double lines  – It indicates total participation of an entity in a relationship
set.
 Double Rectangle  – It represents weak entity set.
 Double Diamonds  – It represents weak relationships.
 Multiple ellipses connected to single ellipse using lines  – It represents
composite attribute
 Ellipse with line inside it  – It represents single values attributes
Related Pages
What is Database

Participation Constraint

DBMS Architecture

Relationships

Cardinality

Example for weak entity

o In the ER diagram, we have two entities Employee and Dependents.

o Employee is a strong entity because it has a primary key attribute
called Employee number (Employee_No) which is capable of uniquely
identifying all the employee.
o Unlike Employee, Dependents is weak entity because it does not
have any primary key .
 o D_Name along with the Employee_No can uniquly identfy the records
of Depends. So here the D_Name (Depends Name) is partial key.

ImportantA lot of you can also argue that a course entity can not be created if student hasn't taken
it so course would be weak entity.

This would be wrong way to think as -

If student s1 doesn't exist then courses c1, c2 ... others can exist as they may have taken courses or
college chooses to have one course that is taken by none of student this semester.

But, if customer c1 doesn't exist then loan L1 for him can not exist at all as loan L1 is uniquely
dependent on existence of customer C1

Strong entity vs Weak entity 

Strong entity Weak entity
Strong entity always has a primary key. It will not have a primary key but it has partial discrimi
key.
It is not dependent on any other entity. Weak entity is dependent on the strong entity.
 Strong entity
Represented by a single rectangle.
Relationship between two strong entities is
represented by a single diamond.
A strong entity may or may not have total
participation.
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Weak entity
Represented by double rectangle.
Relationship between a strong entity and the weak entit
represented by double Diamond.
It has always total participation.