CHAPTER THREE

PART TWO
Enhanced Entity Relation Model
(EER)
 Objectives of Chapter
 Superclass, Subclass and Inheritance

 Specialization and Generalization

 Constraints on Specialization and Generalization

2
 Introduction
 The databases as CAD/CAM, telecommunications, complex software systems, GIS (global information
system), etc.. have more complex requirements.

 This lead to the development of additional semantic data modeling concepts that were incorporated
into conceptual data models such as the ER model.

 The ER model can be enhanced to include the features that have been proposed for semantic data
models, leading to the enhanced ER (EER) model. The EER model includes all the modeling concepts
of the ER model.

 In addition, it includes the concepts of superclass & subclass and the related concepts of specialization
& generalization and also includes some object-oriented concepts, such as inheritance.

 The diagrammatic technique for displaying these concepts in EER schema is called Enhanced ER ,EER
Diagrams or Extended ER Diagrams.
Superclasses, Subclasses & Inheritance
 Cont’d
 In ER modeling, an entity type is used to represent both a type of entity and the entity set (collection of entities
of that type) that exists in the database.

 In many cases, An entity type may have additional meaningful subgroupings of its entities.

 Example: EMPLOYEE may be further grouped into:

SECRETARY, ENGINEER, TECHNICIAN (Based on the EMPLOYEE’s Job)

MANAGER ( based on the role they play)

SALARIED_ EMPLOYEE and HOURLY_EMPLOYEE (based on method of pay)

 Every entity that is a member of these sub groupings is also an employee.

 These sub groupings are called as a subclass of the EMPLOYEE entity type and the EMPLOYEE entity type is
called the superclass for each of these subclasses.

 Superclass also called parent or base class, it is a class from which many subclass can be created.
 The figure below shows how these concepts are diagrammatically represented in EER
diagrams.
 Cont’d
 The relationship between a superclass and any one of its subclasses is called as a
class/subclass relationships or IS-A relationships.

 It is said that SECRETARY is an EMPLOYEE, a TECHNICIAN is an EMPLOYEE, etc…

 A member entity of the subclass represents the same real world entity as some member of
the superclass.

 For eg: a SECRETARY entity, say ‘Mary Smith’ is also the EMPLOYEE ‘Mary Smith’.

 Hence the subclass member is the same as the entity in the super class, but in a distinct
specific role.
 Cont’d
 An entity cannot exist in the database merely by being a member of a subclass; it must

also be a member of the superclass.

 Such an entity can be included optionally as a member any number of subclasses.

 For eg: a salaried employee who is an engineer belongs to the two subclasses

ENGINEER and SALARIED_EMPLOYEE of the EMPLOYEE entity type.

 A salaried employee who is also an engineering manager belongs to the three subclasses:

MANAGER, ENGINEER, and SALARIED_EMPLOYEE

 However, it is not necessary that every entity in a superclass should be a member of

some subclasses.
Attribute Inheritance in Superclass / Subclass Relationships

 An important concept associated with subclasses is that of type inheritance.

 Since, an entity in the subclass represents the same real-world entity from the superclass, it
should possess values for its specific attributes.

 An entity that is a member of a subclass inherits all the attributes of the entity as the
member of the superclass.

 Also, it inherits all the relationships in which the superclass participates.

 Example: In the previous slide, SECRETARY (as well as TECHNICIAN and ENGINEER)
inherit the attributes Name, SSN, …, from EMPLOYEE
Specialization & Generalization
 Specialization
 Specialization is the process of defining a set of subclasses of an entity type or superclass.

 The set of subclasses that forms a specialization is defined on the basis of some distinguishing

characteristics.

 It uses Top to Bottom approach.

 Example 1: the set of subclasses { SECRETARY, ENGINEER, TECHNICIAN} is a specialization

of the superclass EMPLOYEE that distinguishes among employee entities based on the job_type
of each employee entity.

 There can have several specializations of the same entity type, based on different distinguishing

characteristics.

 Example2: MANAGER is a specialization of EMPLOYEE based on the role the employee plays.
 Cont’d
 Example3: the subclasses {SALARIED_EMPLOYEE, HOURLY_EMPLOYEE} is a

specialization of the superclass EMPLOYEE entity type based on the method of pay.

 Superclass/subclass relationships and specialization can be diagrammatically represented

in EER diagrams.

 Attributes of a subclass are called specific or local attributes.

 For example, the attribute Typing Speed of SECRETARY

 The subclass can also participate in specific relationship types.

 For example, a relationship BELONGS_TO of HOURLY_EMPLOYEE

 Cont’d
 The subclasses that define a specialization are attached by lines to a circle that represents the specialization ,

which is connected to the super class.

 Example: the set of subclasses{SECRETARY,ENGINEER,TECHNICIAN} is a specialization of the superclass

EMPLOYEE that distinguishes among employee entities based on the job_type of each employee entity.
 Cont’d
 The attributes that apply only to entities of a particular subclass are called specific
attributes or local attributes.

 Similarly, a subclass can participate in specific relationship types also .

 In summary, the specialization process allows us to do the following

 Define a set of subclasses of an entity type

 Establish additional specific attributes with each subclass

 Establish additional specific relationship types between each subclass and other entity
types or other subclasses.
 Generalization

 Generalization is the reverse of the specialization process. (Bottom to Top ).

 Several classes with common features are generalized into a superclass. Or extract common properties
from set of entities and create a generalized entity from it.

Example: CAR, TRUCK generalized into VEHICLE;

 both CAR, TRUCK become subclasses of the superclass VEHICLE.

 We can view {CAR, TRUCK} as a specialization of VEHICLE

 Alternatively, we can view VEHICLE as a generalization of CAR and TRUCK

  Since both the entity types are having several common attributes, they can be
generalized into the entity type VEHICLE, as shown in below diagram.

Both CAR and TRUCK entities are now subclasses of the generalized superclass VEHICLE.
 Cont’d
 Notice that generalization process can be viewed as being functionally the inverse of the
specialization process.

 Hence, in the above figure, it can be viewed {CAR, TRUCK} as a specialization of

VEHICLE, rather than viewing VEHICLE as a generalization of CAR and TRUCK.

 Similarly, from the previous example, EMPLOYEE can be viewed as a generalization of

SECRETARY, TECHNICIAN and ENGINEER.

 A diagrammatic notation (normally an arrow)to distinguish between generalization and

specialization is used in some design methodologies, but the decision as to which process
more appropriate in a particular situation is often subjective.
Constraints on Specialization & Generalization
 Constraints on Specialization & Generalization
 Basic constraints can apply to a specialization/ generalization:

 Membership constraints: (user defined and attribute defined)

 Disjointness Constraint: (disjoint and overlap)

 Completeness Constraint: (total and partial)

 Membership Constraints

 In general, there may have several specialization defined on the same entity type (or super
class) as shown in the diagram 4.1.

 Predicate-defined ( or condition-defined) : based on some predicate. E.g., based on value

of an attribute, payment, Job-type, or Age.
 Attribute-defined: shows the name of the attribute next to the line drawn from the
superclass toward the subclasses.

 User-defined: membership is defined by the user on an entity by entity basis.

 Cont’d
 The EMPLOYEE entity type has an attribute Job_type.

 We can specify the membership in the SECRETARY subclass, by the condition (Job_type= ‘Secretary’),
which we call the defining predicate of the subclass.

 A predicate_defined subclass is displayed by writing the predicate condition next to the line that
connects the subclass to the specialization circle.

 If all subclasses in a specialization have their membership condition on the same attribute of the
superclass, the specialization itself is called an attribute_defined specialization.

 Example: JobType is the defining attribute of the specialization {SECRETARY, TECHNICIAN,

ENGINEER} of EMPLOYEE.

 When there is no condition for determining membership in a subclass, the subclass is called
user_defined subclass.
Cont’d
 Cont’d
 However, a specialization may also consist of a single subclass only, such as the
{MANAGER} specialization in the figure on next slide.

 In such situations, the circle notation will not be used (refer the diagram on next slide).

 In some specialization, it is possible to determine exactly the entities that will become
members of each subclass by placing a condition on the value of some attribute of the
superclass.

 Such subclasses are called predicate-defined (or condition-defined) subclasses.

Cont’d
 Disjointness Constraint
 Disjoint constraint, which specifies that the subclass of the specialization must be
disjoint.

 This means that an entity can be a member of atmost one of the subclasses of the
specialization.

 A specialization that is attribute_defined implies the disjointness constraint if the attribute

used to define the membership predicate is single-valued.

 This case is represented as d enclosed in a circle (refer the above diagram).

 The same notation is also used to specify the constraint that user_defined subclasses of a
specialization, which must be disjoint.
 Cont’d
 If the subclasses are not constrained to be disjoint, their sets of entities may overlap; i.e, the same entity
may be a member of more than one subclass of the specialization.

 If not disjoint, specialization is overlapping:

 This case is displayed by placing a o in the circle as shown in the below diagram.
 Completeness Constraint
 The other constraint on specialization is called the completeness constraint, which may be total or partial.

 A total specialization constraint specifies that every entity in the superclass must be a member of at least one

subclass in the specialization.

 For eg: if every EMPLOYEE must be either an HOURLY_EMPLOYEE or a SALARIED_EMPLOYEE, then the

specialization {HOURLY_EMPLOYEE, SALARIED_EMPLOYEE} of the below given figure is a total

specialization of EMPLOYEE.

 This is shown in EER diagrams by double line to connect the super class to the circle.

 A single line is used to display a partial specialization, which shows an entity may not belong to any of the

subclasses.

 For eg: if some EMPLOYEE entities do not belong to any of the subclasses {SECRETARY, ENGINEER,

TECHNICIAN} of the following figure, then that specialization is partial.

Cont’d
 Cont’d

 Notice that disjointness and completeness constraints are independent.

 Hence, we have the following four possible constraints on specialization.

 Disjoint, total

 Disjoint, partial
 Overlapping, total
 Overlapping, partial
Example of Disjoint Partial Specialization
Example of Overlapping Total Specialization
 Rules in specialization and generalization
 Certain insertion and deletion rules apply to specialization (and generalization) as a
consequence of the constraints specified earlier.

 Some of the rules are as follows;

 Deleting an entity from a super class implies that it is automatically deleted from all the
subclasses to which it belongs.

 Inserting an entity in a super class implies that the entity is mandatorily inserted in all
predicate_defined (or attribute_defined) subclasses for which the entity satisfies the
defining predicate.

 Inserting an entity in a super class of a total specialization implies that the entity is
mandatorily inserted in atleast one of the subclasses of the specialization.
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