21-Sep-20

Enhanced Entity-Relationship
(EER) Model

Enhanced-ER (EER) Model

Concepts
 Includes all modeling concepts of basic ER
 Additional concepts: subclasses/super
classes, specialization/generalization,
categories, attribute inheritance
 The resulting model is called the enhanced-
ER or Extended ER (E2R or EER) model
 It is used to model applications more
completely and accurately if needed
 It includes some object-oriented concepts,
such as inheritance

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Subclasses and Super classes (1)

 An entity type may have additional meaningful

subgroupings of its entities
 Example: EMPLOYEE may be further grouped into
SECRETARY, ENGINEER, MANAGER, TECHNICIAN,
SALARIED_EMPLOYEE, HOURLY_EMPLOYEE,…
 Each of these groupings 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.
 Example: EMPLOYEE/SECRETARY,
EMPLOYEE/TECHNICIAN

Subclasses and Superclasses (2)

 These are also called IS-A relationships (SECRETARY IS-A

EMPLOYEE, TECHNICIAN IS-A EMPLOYEE, …).
 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
 Example: A salaried employee who is also an engineer
belongs to the two subclasses ENGINEER and
SALARIED_EMPLOYEE
 It is not necessary that every entity in a superclass be a
member of some subclass

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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
 It also inherits all relationships

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
 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 attributes. For
example, TypingSpeed of SECRETARY
 The subclass can participate in specific relationship types.
For example, BELONGS_TO of HOURLY_EMPLOYEE

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Example of a Specialization

Generalization
 The reverse of the specialization process
 Several classes with common features are
generalized into a superclass; original classes
become its subclasses
 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

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Generalization and Specialization

 Data Modeling with Specialization and

Generalization
 A superclass or subclass represents a set of
entities
 Shown in rectangles in EER diagrams (as are
entity types)
 Sometimes, all entity sets are simply called
classes, whether they are entity types,
superclasses, or subclasses

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
 If all subclasses in a specialization have membership condition
on the 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

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Constraints on Specialization and

Generalization (2)

 Two other conditions apply to a specialization/generalization:

 Disjointness Constraint:
 Specifies that the subclasses of the specialization must be
disjointed (an entity can be a member of at most one of
the subclasses of the specialization)
 Specified by d in EER diagram

 If not disjointed, overlap; that is the same entity may be a

member of more than one subclass of the specialization
 Specified by o in EER diagram

Constraints on Specialization and

Generalization (2)

 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 (3)
 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.

Example of disjoint partial

Specialization

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Specialization / Generalization Hierarchies,

Lattices and Shared Subclasses

 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)
 In a lattice, a subclass can be subclass of more than one
superclass (called multiple inheritance)
 In a lattice or hierarchy, a subclass inherits attributes not
only of its direct superclass, but also of all its
predecessor superclasses

Specialization / Generalization Hierarchies,

Lattices and Shared Subclasses

 A subclass with more than one superclass is called a

shared subclass
 Can have specialization hierarchies or lattices, or
generalization hierarchies or lattices
 In specialization, start with an entity type and then
define subclasses of the entity type by successive
specialization (top down conceptual refinement process)
 In generalization, start with many entity types and
generalize those that have common properties (bottom
up conceptual synthesis process)
 In practice, the combination of two processes is
employed

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Specialization / Generalization Lattice Example

(UNIVERSITY)

Categories (UNION TYPES)

 All of the superclass/subclass relationships we have

seen thus far have a single superclass
 A shared subclass is subclass in more than one
distinct superclass/subclass relationships, where
each relationships has a single superclass (multiple
inheritance)
 In some cases, need to model a single
superclass/subclass relationship with more than one
superclass

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Categories (UNION TYPES)

 Superclasses represent different entity types

 Such a subclass is called a category or UNION TYPE
 Example: Database for vehicle registration, vehicle owner
can be a person, a bank (holding a lien on a vehicle) or a
company.
 Category (subclass) OWNER is a subset of the union of
the three superclasses COMPANY, BANK, and PERSON
 A category member must exist in at least one of its
superclasses
 Note: The difference from shared subclass, which is subset
of the intersection of its superclasses (shared subclass
member must exist in all of its superclasses).

Example of categories
(UNION TYPES)

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Formal Definitions of EER Model (1)

 Class C: A set of entities; could be entity type,

subclass, superclass, category.
 Subclass S: A class whose entities must always
be subset of the entities in another class, called
the superclass C of the superclass/subclass (or
IS-A) relationship S/C:
S⊆C

Formal Definitions of EER Model (1)

 Specialization Z: Z = {S1, S2,…, Sn} a set of subclasses

with same superclass G; hence, G/Si a superclass
relationship for i = 1, …., n.
 G is called a generalization of the subclasses {S1,
S2,…, Sn}
 Z is total if we always have:

S1 ∪ S2 ∪ … ∪ Sn = G;
Otherwise, Z is partial.
 Z is disjoint if we always have:

Si ∩ Sj empty-set for i ≠ j;
Otherwise, Z is overlapping.

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Formal Definitions of EER Model (2)

 Subclass S of C is predicate defined if predicate p on

attributes of C is used to specify membership in S; that
is, S = C[p], where C[p] is the set of entities in C that
satisfy p
 A subclass not defined by a predicate is called user-
defined
 Attribute-defined specialization: if a predicate A = ci
(where A is an attribute of G and ci is a constant value
from the domain of A) is used to specify membership in
each subclass Si in Z

 Note: If ci ≠ cj for i ≠ j, and A is single-valued, then the

attribute-defined specialization will be disjoint.

Formal Definitions of EER Model (2)

 Category or UNION type T

 A class that is a subset of the union of n defining
superclasses
D1, D2,…Dn, n>1:
T ⊆ (D1 ∪ D2 ∪ … ∪ Dn)

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Acknowledgement
Reference for this lecture is

 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe,

Fundamentals of Database Systems,
Pearson Education.

The authors and the publishers are

gratefully acknowledged.

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