Database Management Systems · Foundations

Entity-relationship modeling

Sketching entities and their relationships as a diagram before turning them into tables.

Also known as: ER diagrams, ER model, conceptual database design.

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• Relational model: Data as tables of rows and columns, with no other structure implied.

Related topics

• Normalization: Splitting tables so each fact lives in exactly one place, to avoid update anomalies.
• Functional dependencies: One column's value fully determines another's, e.g. knowing the ID tells you the name.