How to identify a strong vs weak relationship on ERD?

Question

A dashed line means that the relationship is strong, whereas a solid line means that the relationship is weak. On the following diagram how do we decide that the relationship between the Room and Class entities is strong. Is it because Room entity has a regular key (non-composite)?

Answer 1

We draw a solid line if and only if we have an ID-dependent relationship; otherwise it would be a dashed line.

Consider a weak but not ID-dependent relationship; We draw a dashed line because it is a weak relationship.

Answer 2

1. Weak (Non-Identifying) Relationship

   • Entity is existence-independent of other enties

   • PK of Child doesn’t contain PK component of Parent Entity

2. Strong (Identifying) Relationship

   • Child entity is existence-dependent on parent

   • PK of Child Entity contains PK component of Parent Entity

   • Usually occurs utilizing a composite key for primary key, which means one of this composite key components must be the primary key of the parent entity.

Answer 3

The relationship Room to Class is considered weak (non-identifying) because the primary key components CID and DATE of entity Class doesn't contain the primary key RID of entity Room (in this case primary key of Room entity is a single component, but even if it was a composite key, one component of it also fulfills the condition).

However, for instance, in the case of the relationship Class and Class_Ins we see that is a strong (identifying) relationship because the primary key components EmpID and CID and DATE of Class_Ins contains a component of the primary key Class (in this case it contains both components CID and DATE).

Answer 4

In an ER diagram, I believe when the relationship is strong, i.e., the primary_key of the parent forms a composite or non-composite primary_key in the child entities, we use a solid line to depict that. Similarly, for the case when the relationship is weak, which means the primary_key of the parent is not used as a primary_key in the child entity, then we use a dashed line to show that.

Answer 5

In entity relationship modeling, solid lines represent strong relationships and dashed lines represent weak relationships.