Chapter 6

The Enhanced Entity-Relationship

(EER) Model
 The Enhanced Entity-Relationship
(EER) Model
• Enhanced ER (EER) model
– Created to design more accurate database
schemas
• Reflect the data properties and constraints more
precisely
– More complex requirements than traditional
applications
 Subclasses, Superclasses, and
Inheritance
• EER model includes all modeling concepts of
the ER model
• In addition, EER includes:
– Subclasses and superclasses
– Specialization and generalization
– Category or union type
– Attribute and relationship inheritance
 Subclasses, Superclasses, and
Inheritance (cont’d.)
• Enhanced ER or EER diagrams
– Diagrammatic technique for displaying these
concepts in an EER schema
• Subtype or subclass of an entity type
– Subgroupings of entities that are meaningful
– Represented explicitly because of their
significance to the database application
 Subclasses, Superclasses, and
Inheritance (cont’d.)
• Terms for relationship between a superclass
and any one of its subclasses
– Superclass/subclass
– Supertype/subtype
– Class/subclass relationship
• Type inheritance
– Subclass entity inherits all attributes and
relationships of superclass
 Subclasses and Superclasses (1)
• 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
• EMPLOYEEs who are managers
• SALARIED_EMPLOYEE, HOURLY_EMPLOYEE
• Based on the EMPLOYEE’s method of pay
• EER diagrams extend ER diagrams to represent these
additional subgroupings, called subclasses or subtypes

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 Subclasses and Superclasses (2)
• Each of these subgroupings is a subset of EMPLOYEE entities
• Each is called a subclass of EMPLOYEE
• EMPLOYEE is the superclass for each of these subclasses
• These are called superclass/subclass relationships:
– EMPLOYEE/SECRETARY
– EMPLOYEE/TECHNICIAN
– EMPLOYEE/MANAGER
– …

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 Subclasses and Superclasses (3)
• These are also called IS-A relationships
– SECRETARY IS-A EMPLOYEE, TECHNICIAN IS-A EMPLOYEE, ….
• Note: An entity that is member of a subclass represents the
same real-world entity as some member of the superclass:
– The subclass member is the same entity in a distinct specific role
– An entity cannot exist in the database merely by being a
member of a subclass; it must also be a member of the
superclass
– A member of the superclass can be optionally included as a
member of any number of its subclasses

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 Subclasses and Superclasses (4)
• Examples:
– A salaried employee who is also an engineer belongs to the two
subclasses:
• ENGINEER, and
• SALARIED_EMPLOYEE
– A salaried employee who is also an engineering manager
belongs to the three subclasses:
• MANAGER,
• ENGINEER, and
• SALARIED_EMPLOYEE
• It is not necessary that every entity in a superclass be a
member of some subclass

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Representing Specialization in EER Diagrams

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 Attribute Inheritance in Superclass / Subclass
Relationships
• An entity that is member of a subclass inherits
– All attributes of the entity as a member of the superclass
– All relationships of the entity as a member of the
superclass
• Example:
– In the previous slide, SECRETARY (as well as TECHNICIAN
and ENGINEER) inherit the attributes Name, SSN, …, from
EMPLOYEE
– Every SECRETARY entity will have values for the inherited
attributes

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 Specialization (1)

• Specialization is the process of defining a set

of subclasses of a superclass
• The set of subclasses is based upon some
distinguishing characteristics of the entities in
the superclass
– Example: {SECRETARY, ENGINEER, TECHNICIAN} is
a specialization of EMPLOYEE based upon job type.
• May have several specializations of the same superclass

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 Specialization (2)

• Example: Another specialization of EMPLOYEE based on

method of pay is {SALARIED_EMPLOYEE, HOURLY_EMPLOYEE}.
– 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 TypingSpeed of SECRETARY
– The subclass can also participate in specific relationship types.
• For example, a relationship BELONGS_TO of HOURLY_EMPLOYEE

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 Specialization and Generalization
• Specialization
– Process of defining a set of subclasses of an entity
type
– Defined on the basis of some distinguishing
characteristic of the entities in the superclass
• Subclass can define:
– Specific attributes
– Specific relationship types
 Specialization and Generalization
(cont’d.)
• Certain attributes may apply to some but not
all entities of the superclass
• Some relationship types may be participated
in only by members of the subclass
 Generalization
• Reverse process of abstraction
• Generalize into a single superclass
– Original entity types are special subclasses
• Generalization
– Process of defining a generalized entity type from
the given entity types
 Constraints and Characteristics of
Specialization and Generalization
Hierarchies
• Constraints that apply to a single specialization
or a single generalization
• Differences between specialization/
generalization lattices and hierarchies
Constraints on Specialization and Generalization
(1)
• If we can determine exactly those entities that
will become members of each subclass by a
condition, the subclasses are called predicate-
defined (or condition-defined) subclasses
– Condition is a constraint that determines subclass
members
– Display a predicate-defined subclass by writing the
predicate condition next to the line attaching the
subclass to its superclass

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Constraints on Specialization and Generalization
(2)
• If all subclasses in a specialization have membership condition
on same attribute of the superclass, specialization is called an
attribute-defined specialization
– Attribute is called the defining attribute of the specialization
– Example: JobType is the defining attribute of the specialization
{SECRETARY, TECHNICIAN, ENGINEER} of EMPLOYEE
• If no condition determines membership, the subclass is called
user-defined
– Membership in a subclass is determined by the database users
by applying an operation to add an entity to the subclass
– Membership in the subclass is specified individually for each
entity in the superclass by the user

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Displaying an attribute-defined specialization in
EER diagrams

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Constraints on Specialization and Generalization
(3)
• Two basic constraints can apply to a
specialization/generalization:
– Disjointness Constraint:
– Completeness Constraint:

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Constraints on Specialization and Generalization
(4)
• Disjointness Constraint:
– Specifies that the subclasses of the specialization
must be disjoint:
• an entity can be a member of at most one of the
subclasses of the specialization
– Specified by d in EER diagram
– If not disjoint, specialization is overlapping:
• that is the same entity may be a member of more than
one subclass of the specialization
– Specified by o in EER diagram

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Constraints on Specialization and Generalization
(5)
• Completeness Constraint:
– Total specifies that every entity in the superclass
must be a member of some subclass in the
specialization/generalization
– Shown in EER diagrams by a double line
– Partial allows an entity not to belong to any of the
subclasses
– Shown in EER diagrams by a single line

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Constraints on Specialization and Generalization
(6)
• Hence, we have four types of
specialization/generalization:
– Disjoint, total
– Disjoint, partial
– Overlapping, total
– Overlapping, partial
• Note: Generalization usually is total because
the superclass is derived from the subclasses.

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Example of disjoint partial Specialization

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Example of overlapping total Specialization

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 Specialization/Generalization Hierarchies,
Lattices & Shared Subclasses (1)
• A subclass may itself have further subclasses
specified on it
– forms a hierarchy or a lattice
• Hierarchy has a constraint that every subclass has
only one superclass (called single inheritance); this is
basically a tree structure
• In a lattice, a subclass can be subclass of more than
one superclass (called multiple inheritance)

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Shared Subclass “Engineering_Manager”

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 Specialization/Generalization Hierarchies,
Lattices & Shared Subclasses (2)
• In a lattice or hierarchy, a subclass inherits attributes not only
of its direct superclass, but also of all its predecessor
superclasses
• A subclass with more than one superclass is called a shared
subclass (multiple inheritance)
• Can have:
– specialization hierarchies or lattices, or
– generalization hierarchies or lattices,
– depending on how they were derived
• We just use specialization (to stand for the end result of either
specialization or generalization)

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 Specialization/Generalization Hierarchies,
Lattices & Shared Subclasses (3)
• In specialization, start with an entity type and then define
subclasses of the entity type by successive specialization
– called a top down conceptual refinement process
• In generalization, start with many entity types and generalize
those that have common properties
– Called a bottom up conceptual synthesis process
• In practice, a combination of both processes is usually
employed

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Specialization / Generalization Lattice Example
(UNIVERSITY)

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