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Database Forum / General DB Topics / DB Theory / October 2005

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help with EER diagram

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Wookie - 20 Oct 2005 15:41 GMT
Can someone please help me identify the entities for an extended entity
relationship diagram for the below scenario.

Thanks.

EmJ.

Better Books and Bargains

The book shop sells books,  which may be either fiction or non-fiction.
Books have an ISBN, bar-code, title, author(s) / editor(s), publisher, date
of publication, quantity in stock, price, quantity on order.
There  may be a series title.

Fiction books are either paperback, large paperback or hardback and may be
ranked in 'The Guardian' top 40 best seller list.

Non-fiction books belong to a subject area and may have an edition number.

Due to the expansion the shop now also sells other merchandise such as:
·       magazines which have a bar-code, title, and issue number and/or
date, publisher, price, quantity in stock, quantity on order.
·       stationery items with bar code, price, quantity in stock, quantity
on order, description, supplier.
·       greetings cards with bar-code, price, type, quantity in stock,
quantity on order, printer, description, supplier.
·       seasonal items with bar-code, price, quantity in stock, quantity on
order, supplier, start date, end date, description.

Customers make purchases for which they receive receipts having a receipt
number, date, quantity, bar-code, brief description, price and sales person
code.

Sometimes a special offer voucher may be offered in payment.  These will
have a voucher number, value, company of issue and expiry date.

The issue of a receipt causes the quantity in stock  to be updated.

The sales person code is used to calculate the monthly bonus.
Jenski - 20 Oct 2005 18:01 GMT
what are your thoughts so far? ;-)
Wookie - 20 Oct 2005 18:05 GMT
> what are your thoughts so far? ;-)

These are the entities that I got:

book, fiction, non-fiction, paperback, large paperback , hardback,other
merchandise, magazines, stationery items, greetings cards, seasonal items,
receipt, special offer voucher, sales person code.

Are there more?
Leif B. Kristensen - 20 Oct 2005 23:22 GMT
> These are the entities that I got:
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Are there more?

Those aren't entities, but attributes.

If you think about it, each of those "entities" could be expressed as a
numerical value in a main table called eg. "products". That table could
have columns like "number in stock", "number sold" etc. The "entities"
that you have described above, are "item types", and could be
enumerated in another table where eg. "books" could be assigned a
number 1, fiction as number 2, etc. In the next step, you may find that
"books" is worthy of yet another table, with attributes like "fiction",
"non-fiction" etc.

The way to go about a solution of an assignment like this, is to write
everything up in a huge table with every attribute in a separate
column. Following the rules of normalization, you will find that each
"text field" that tend to repeat itself, should be broken out into
another table.

It's not rocket science. Start with a crude model, and then refine it in
an iterative process.

A quite good example of normalization of just the kind of data model
that you describe here, with some very useful commentaries, can be
found as Appendix A of this document:

<url:http://xml.coverpages.org/GENTECH-DataModelV11.pdf>
Signature

Leif Biberg Kristensen
http://solumslekt.org/

JOG - 20 Oct 2005 22:14 GMT
> what are your thoughts so far? ;-)

that this all looks like more homework...
David  Cressey - 22 Oct 2005 15:11 GMT
> Can someone please help me identify the entities for an extended entity
> relationship diagram for the below scenario.
[quoted text clipped - 35 lines]
>
> The sales person code is used to calculate the monthly bonus.

At www.databaseanswers.com  they have over 200 data models for typical
situations.  One of them is a book shop.
 
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