Examples and Tools for Database Design - Resources

To learn more about database fundamentals, including ER modeling, we recommend the following books:

1. Database Management Systems by Raghu Ramakrishnan and Johannes Gehrke (McGraw-Hill).
   
2. Fundamentals of Database Systems by Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe (Addison-Wesley).
   
3. Database Systems: A Practical Approach to Design, Implementation and Management by Thomas M. Connolly and Carolyn E. Begg (Addison-Wesley).

Exercises

1. When would you use a weak entity?
   
2. Is it better to use entities instead of attributes?
   
3. Alter and extend the music database ER model so that it can store compilations, where a compilation is an album that contains tracks by two or more different artists.
   
4. Create an ER diagram for an online media store using the following requirements:
   
   • There are two types of product: music CDs and video DVDs.
     
   • Customers can buy any number of each product.
     
   • For each CD, store the title, the artist’s name, the label (publisher), and the price. Also store the number, title, and length (in seconds) of each track on the CD.
     
   • For each video DVD, store the title the studio name, and the price.

Tables 4-1 and 4-2 contain some sample data to help you better understand the requirements.

Table 4-1. Video DVDs

Table 4-2. Music CDs

Table 4-3 contains a sample list of music CD track titles and length in seconds for the CD with the title “Come Away With Me” by the artist Norah Jones.

Table 4-3. Tracks