Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Now, all the relationships among the entities have been deined. It is time to create the
class registration data model with Microsoft Visio. he IDEF1X standard will be used to
create all the components in the class registration data model.
Create entities
: In the following process, a bold-lettered word or phrase means that it is
an item you need to click or type. It may also be used to represent a container or a dialog box
where you can conduct activities. To get started, follow the steps given below:
1. Suppose that Microsoft Visio 2007 has been installed on your machine. Start
Visio
in
Microsoft Oice
. Click
File
,
New
,
Software and Database
, and
Database Model
Diagram
.
2. To match the icons used in the examples in this chapter, you need to set the following
options for your data model: click
Database
on the menu bar and select
Options
and
then
Document
. Under the
General
tab, check the
IDEF1X
option for
Symbol set
(see
Figure 2.23). Click the
Table
tab and uncheck the
Show
option for
IDEF1X optionality
'(O)'
. Under the
Relationship
tab, check the option
Cardinality
, and then click
OK
.
3. To add an entity to the drawing page, click the
Entity
icon in the
Entity Relationship
pane, hold the mouse and drag the
Entity
icon to the drawing page.
4. To specify the entity just added to the drawing page, right click the entity and select
Database Properties
. he
Database Properties
dialog will be open for conigu-
ration. In the
Categories
list box, select
Deinition
and enter
STUDENT
in the
Physical name
textbox as shown in Figure 2.24.
5. To specify the attributes, click
Columns
in the
Categories
list box. Enter attribute
names such as
StudentID
,
FirstName
,
LastName
,
Major
, and
FacultyID
. Double
click the corresponding data type to change the character length; for example, change
the length of FirstName and LastName to 30 from the default length of 10. Specify
StudentID as the primary key shown in Figure 2.25.
Figure 2.23
Database model diagram options.
