ER Diagram stands for Entity Relationship Diagram, also known as ERD is a diagram that displays the relationship of entity sets stored in a database. In other words, ER diagrams help to explain the logical structure of databases. ER diagrams are created based on three basic concepts: entities, attributes and relationships.
ER Diagrams contain different symbols that use rectangles to represent entities, ovals to define attributes and diamond shapes to represent relationships.
At first look, an ER diagram looks very similar to the flowchart. However, ER Diagram includes many specialized symbols, and its meanings make this model unique. The purpose of ER Diagram is to represent the entity framework infrastructure.
ER Model stands for Entity Relationship Model is a high-level conceptual data model diagram. ER model helps to systematically analyze data requirements to produce a well-designed database. The ER Model represents real-world entities and the relationships between them. Creating an ER Model in DBMS is considered as a best practice before implementing your database.
ER Modeling helps you to analyze data requirements systematically to produce a well-designed database. So, it is considered a best practice to complete ER modeling before implementing your database.
ER diagrams are visual tools that are helpful to represent the ER model. Peter Chen proposed ER Diagram in 1971 to create a uniform convention that can be used for relational databases and networks. He aimed to use an ER model as a conceptual modeling approach.
Here, are prime reasons for using the ER Diagram
Now in this ERD Diagram Tutorial, let’s check out some interesting facts about ER Diagram Model:
Entity Relationship Diagram Symbols & Notations mainly contains three basic symbols which are rectangle, oval and diamond to represent relationships between elements, entities and attributes. There are some sub-elements which are based on main elements in ERD Diagram. ER Diagram is a visual representation of data that describes how data is related to each other using different ERD Symbols and Notations.
Following are the main components and its symbols in ER Diagrams:
This model is based on three basic concepts:
ER Diagram Examples
For example, in a University database, we might have entities for Students, Courses, and Lecturers. Students entity can have attributes like Rollno, Name, and DeptID. They might have relationships with Courses and Lecturers.
A real-world thing either living or non-living that is easily recognizable and nonrecognizable. It is anything in the enterprise that is to be represented in our database. It may be a physical thing or simply a fact about the enterprise or an event that happens in the real world.
An entity can be place, person, object, event or a concept, which stores data in the database. The characteristics of entities are must have an attribute, and a unique key. Every entity is made up of some ‘attributes’ which represent that entity.
Examples of entities:
Notation of an Entity
An entity set is a group of similar kind of entities. It may contain entities with attribute sharing similar values. Entities are represented by their properties, which also called attributes. All attributes have their separate values. For example, a student entity may have a name, age, class, as attributes.
Example of Entities:
A university may have some departments. All these departments employ various lecturers and offer several programs.
Some courses make up each program. Students register in a particular program and enroll in various courses. A lecturer from the specific department takes each course, and each lecturer teaches a various group of students.
Relationship is nothing but an association among two or more entities. E.g., Tom works in the Chemistry department.
Entities take part in relationships. We can often identify relationships with verbs or verb phrases.
For example:
A weak entity is a type of entity which doesn’t have its key attribute. It can be identified uniquely by considering the primary key of another entity. For that, weak entity sets need to have participation.
In above ER Diagram examples, “Trans No” is a discriminator within a group of transactions in an ATM.
Let’s learn more about a weak entity by comparing it with a Strong Entity
| Strong Entity Set | Weak Entity Set |
|---|---|
| Strong entity set always has a primary key. | It does not have enough attributes to build a primary key. |
| It is represented by a rectangle symbol. | It is represented by a double rectangle symbol. |
| It contains a Primary key represented by the underline symbol. | It contains a Partial Key which is represented by a dashed underline symbol. |
| The member of a strong entity set is called as dominant entity set. | The member of a weak entity set called as a subordinate entity set. |
| Primary Key is one of its attributes which helps to identify its member. | In a weak entity set, it is a combination of primary key and partial key of the strong entity set. |
| In the ER diagram the relationship between two strong entity set shown by using a diamond symbol. | The relationship between one strong and a weak entity set shown by using the double diamond symbol. |
| The connecting line of the strong entity set with the relationship is single. | The line connecting the weak entity set for identifying relationship is double. |
It is a single-valued property of either an entity-type or a relationship-type.
For example, a lecture might have attributes: time, date, duration, place, etc.
An attribute in ER Diagram examples, is represented by an Ellipse
| Types of Attributes | Description |
|---|---|
| Simple attribute | Simple attributes can’t be divided any further. For example, a student’s contact number. It is also called an atomic value. |
| Composite attribute | It is possible to break down composite attribute. For example, a student’s full name may be further divided into first name, second name, and last name. |
| Derived attribute | This type of attribute does not include in the physical database. However, their values are derived from other attributes present in the database. For example, age should not be stored directly. Instead, it should be derived from the DOB of that employee. |
| Multivalued attribute | Multivalued attributes can have more than one values. For example, a student can have more than one mobile number, email address, etc. |
Defines the numerical attributes of the relationship between two entities or entity sets.
Different types of cardinal relationships are:
1.One-to-one:
One entity from entity set X can be associated with at most one entity of entity set Y and vice versa.
Example: One student can register for numerous courses. However, all those courses have a single line back to that one student.
2.One-to-many:
One entity from entity set X can be associated with multiple entities of entity set Y, but an entity from entity set Y can be associated with at least one entity.
For example, one class is consisting of multiple students.
3. Many to One
More than one entity from entity set X can be associated with at most one entity of entity set Y. However, an entity from entity set Y may or may not be associated with more than one entity from entity set X.
For example, many students belong to the same class.
4. Many to Many:
One entity from X can be associated with more than one entity from Y and vice versa.
For example, Students as a group are associated with multiple faculty members, and faculty members can be associated with multiple students.
Now in this ERD Diagram Tutorial, we will learn how to create an ER Diagram. Following are the steps to create an ER Diagram:
Let’s study them with an Entity Relationship Diagram Example:
In a university, a Student enrolls in Courses. A student must be assigned to at least one or more Courses. Each course is taught by a single Professor. To maintain instruction quality, a Professor can deliver only one course
We have three entities
We have the following two relationships
For them problem statement we know that,
You need to study the files, forms, reports, data currently maintained by the organization to identify attributes. You can also conduct interviews with various stakeholders to identify entities. Initially, it’s important to identify the attributes without mapping them to a particular entity.
Once, you have a list of Attributes, you need to map them to the identified entities. Ensure an attribute is to be paired with exactly one entity. If you think an attribute should belong to more than one entity, use a modifier to make it unique.
Once the mapping is done, identify the primary Keys. If a unique key is not readily available, create one.
| Entity | Primary Key | Attribute |
|---|---|---|
| Student | Student_ID | StudentName |
| Professor | Employee_ID | ProfessorName |
| Course | Course_ID | CourseName |
For Course Entity, attributes could be Duration, Credits, Assignments, etc. For the sake of ease we have considered just one attribute.
A more modern representation of Entity Relationship Diagram Example
Here are some best practice or example for Developing Effective ER Diagrams.
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