11/5/2018 Advanced Database Management System - Tutorials and Notes: Reduction of Relationship set into relation schema

Reduction of Relationship set into relation schema

How to convert a Relationship into relation schema?

Any relationship of an ER diagram can be converted into relations based on the type of the relationships between entity sets. We have the following relationship
types;

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

Among these relationship types,

1. Only Many-to-many needs separate table to be created.
For many-to-many relationship, create a table with the relationship name with the attributes from the participating entity sets’ primary keys. That is, if we have
entity sets A and B connected through a relationship AB which is many-to-many relationship, then AB will have the primary keys of A and B as attributes.
2. For other types, we need not create separate table for relationship.
For other type of relationships, just include the primary of one side as foreign key of the other side. That is, if we have entity sets A and B connected through a
relationship AB which is a one-to-one or one-to-many or many-to-one, then include the one side’s primary key as the other side’s foreign key.

Let us consider the following relation schemas for discussion;

Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone)
Account (ACNo, Balance, BName)
Also, assume that Borrower is the relationship between Customer and Account. Then, we may have the following cases;
Case 1: Assume that a customer can have one or more accounts and an account can be held by one or more customers (a joint account). This type of relationship
is Many-to-Many. For this case, according to the rules, we need separate table for the relationship. The table will consist of the primary keys of the relations
Customer and Account. Thus, we have,
Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName)

Borrower (CNo, ACNo)

Case 2: Assume that a customer can have only one account and an account can be held by one or more customers (a joint account). This type of relationship is
Many-to-One. For this case, the rule is to include the primary key of one side into the other side. Here, one side is Account and many side is Customer. Then we
have to include the primary key of Account into the schema Customer as foreign key. Thus, we have,
Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone, ACNo)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName)

Case 3: Assume that a customer can have many accounts and an account can be held by only one customer. This type of relationship is One-to-Many. Here, we
need to insert the primary key of one side, that is, Customer relation into the many side, that is, Account as follows;
Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName, CNo)

Case 4: Assume that a customer can have only one account and an account can be held by utmost one customer. This type of relationship is One-to-One. In this
case, we need to insert the primary key of one side into the schema of other side. As we have both side as one sides, then we have the following different possible
designations, where both are correct.
Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone, ACNo)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName)

OR
Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName, CNo)

Note: The foreign keys are mentioned in bold letters.
What would be the problem if we create separate tables for all the relationship types other than Many-to-Many?

The result will be Redundant.For example, let us consider case 2, where many-to-one relationship is discussed. After converting into relation schema, we have the
following relation schemas.

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11/5/2018 Advanced Database Management System - Tutorials and Notes: Reduction of Relationship set into relation schema
Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone, ACNo)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName)

Suppose, if we need to create separate table for relationship set, then our relation schemas will look like follows;
Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone, ACNo)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName)

Depositor (CNo, ACNo)

From this, it is clearly visible that both Customer and Depositor have the attributes (CNo, ACNo). Hence it is said to be redundant.
Why do we need to create separate table for many-to-many relationship?

If we include the primary key of one entity set as foreign of other entity set like in the case of one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-one, then we would have the
following set of relation schemas for case 1.
Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName, CNo)

OR

Customer (CNo, CName, Address, Phone, ACNo)

Account (ACNo, Balance, BName)

Let us explain the problem with the following sample data;

CNo CName Address Phone

C101 Kumar Chennai 9988554422
C102 Steve Mumbai 9758632512
C103 Arun Delhi 8956234512
C104 Karthik Delhi 7898654523
Figure 1 – Customer table

ACNo Balance BName

A101 5000 TNagar
A102 14000 Tambaram
A103 13000 Bandra
A104 30000 Chandni chowk
Figure 2 – Account table

Suppose we have many-to-many relationship between Customer and Account, i.e, one customer can have one or more accounts and one account can be held by
more than one customer jointly. Assume that, customer ‘C101’ have accounts ‘A101’ and ‘A102’, customer ‘C102’ have account ‘A103’, and customer ‘C103’ and
‘C104’ jointly have account ‘A104’.
A) Let us include the ACNo as foreign key in Customer relation. Observe the Customer table after conversion.
CNo CName Address Phone ACNo
C101 Kumar Chennai 9988554422 A101
C101 Kumar Chennai 9988554422 A102
C102 Steve Mumbai 9758632512 A103
C103 Arun Delhi 8956234512 A104
C104 Karthik Delhi 7898654523 A104
Figure 3 – Customer table after including the ACNo as foreign key

In figure 3, the customer details for ‘C101’ are repeated for 2 accounts ‘A101’, and ‘A102’.
B) Let us include the CNo as foreign key in Account relation. Observe the Account table after conversion.

ACNo Balance BName CNo

A101 5000 TNagar C101
A102 14000 Tambaram C101
A103 13000 Bandra C102

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11/5/2018 Advanced Database Management System - Tutorials and Notes: Reduction of Relationship set into relation schema
A104 30000 Chandni chowk C103
A104 30000 Chandni chowk C104
Figure 4 – Account table after including the CNo as foreign key

In figure 4, the account details for account ‘A104’ is repeated for customers ‘C103’, and ‘C104’.
In both A and B, it shows redundancy in the data stored.
C) Let us consider separate table for many-to-many relationship as given in the tables below;

CNo CName Address Phone

C101 Kumar Chennai 9988554422
C102 Steve Mumbai 9758632512
C103 Arun Delhi 8956234512
C104 Karthik Delhi 7898654523
Figure 1 – Customer table

ACNo Balance BName

A101 5000 TNagar
A102 14000 Tambaram
A103 13000 Bandra
A104 30000 Chandni chowk
Figure 2 – Account table

CNo ACNo
C101 A101
C101 A102
C102 A103
C103 A104
C104 A104
Figure 5 – Relationship table Depositor
Figure 5 shows minimal redundancy which cannot be avoided.

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