Entity-Relationship

Model
Leo Mark
(May 2002)
 The Real
The Model
World
real
custome
rs customer
surrogates
 Entity Type and entity
surrogates

airport

• entity type names must be unique

 Single-valued Properties
airport

airport
name
Hartsfield Logan
Kastrup

• property values are lexical, visible, audible,

….they are things that name other things
 Identifying Properties
cph
lax
airport atl
code bos

airport

• for each identifying property value there is

at most one instance of the identified entity
• every entity must be uniquely referenceable
 Multi-valued Properties

su
th mo th
weekdays we we
mo mo

flt-schedule
 Composite Properties

1 Flughafen St
airport
400 Flight Av
airport 12 Logan Rd
street

airport airport Hamburg

city address
Denver
airport Boston
zip

90123
56789
12345
 1-1 relationship types
1 1
female- current male-
customer marriage customer

partial
functions
• the names of multiple relationship
types between the same two entity
0-N and 1-N relationship types
1 N
airport from flt-schedule

partial
 Mandatory 0-N and 1-N
relationship types
1 N
airport from flt-schedule

total
 N-M relationship types
N M
customer reservation flt-instance
 N-ary relationship types

plane-part-
supplier L supply plane-part
M

supplier# N quantity part#

repair- flt-repair-
order# order

• many ternary relationship types cannot

be reduced to a conjunction of binary
relationship types
 Identifying relationship types
& weak entity types

flt#
• flt-instance cannot
flt-schedule
exist without flt-
schedule
• flt-instance cannot
from
be identified
without flt-schedule
date
• (flt#, date) identifies
flt-instance
flt-instance
recursive relationship types

out

connection flt-schedule flt#

in

departure arrival
time time
 Are relationships entities?
Or, are they just “glue”?

1 N
airport from flt-schedule

departure
time

• relationships may have attributes

• for 1-N (and 1-1) relationships,
attributes may be moved to the entity
on the “many-side”
 Are relationships entities?
Or, are they just “glue”?
(cont....)
N M
customer reservation flt-instance

payment
method

• in N-M relationships, the attributes

cannot be moved to the entities
• how can non-entities have
attributes?
 Are relationships entities?
Or, are they just “glue”?
(cont....)
N M
customer reservation flt-instance

payment
method

1 N M 1
customer reservation flt-instance

payment
method

An objectified relationship type

 supertypes and subtypes?
Male

x
passenger
Female

economy class first class

passenger passenger

business class
passenger
UNION entity types

company person

payer
property or entity type?

family
name

customer
relationship type or entity
type?

flt-instance

reservation

customer
What’s the Result Type of a
Query?