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Chapter 3:
The Enhanced E-R Model
Modern Database Management 10th Edition
Jeffrey A. Hoffer, V. Ramesh,
Heikki Topi
2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
Supertypes and Subtypes
Subtype: A subgrouping of the entities in
an entity type that has attributes distinct
from those in other subgroupings Supertype: A generic entity type that has a relationship with one or more subtypes Attribute Inheritance: Subtype entities inherit values of all attributes
of the supertype An instance of a subtype is also an instance of the supertype
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Figure 3-1 Basic notation for supertype/subtype notation
a) EER notatio n
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Figure 3-2 Employee supertype with three subtypes
All employee subtypes will have employee number, name, address, and date hired
Each employee subtype
will also have its own attributes
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2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
Relationships and Subtypes
Relationships at the supertype level
indicate that all subtypes will participate in
the relationship The instances of a subtype may participate in a relationship unique to that subtype. In this situation, the relationship is shown at the subtype level
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2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
Figure 3-3 Supertype/subtype relationships in a hospital
Both outpatients and resident patients are cared for by a responsible physician Only resident patients are assigned to a bed
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Generalization and Specialization
Generalization: The process of
defining a more general entity type from a
set of more specialized entity types. BOTTOM-UP
Specialization: The process of
defining one or more subtypes of the
supertype and forming supertype/subtype relationships. TOP-DOWN
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2011 Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall
Figure 3-4 Example of generalization
a) Three entity types: CAR, TRUCK, and MOTORCYCLE
All these types of vehicles have common attributes
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Figure 3-4 Example of generalization (cont.)
b) Generalization to VEHICLE supertype
So we put the shared attributes in a supertype
Note: no subtype for motorcycle, since it has no unique
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Figure 3-5 Example of specialization
a) Entity type PART
Only applies to manufactured parts
Applies only to purchased parts
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Figure 3-5 Example of specialization (cont.)
b) Specialization to MANUFACTURED PART and PURCHASED PART
Created 2 subtypes
Note: multivalued attribute was replaced by an
associative entity relationship to another entity 11 Chapter
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Constraints in Supertype/ Completeness Constraint Completeness Constraints:
Whether an instance of a supertype must
also be a member of at least one subtype Total Specialization Rule: Yes (double line) Partial Specialization Rule: No (single line)
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Figure 3-6 Examples of completeness constraints
a) Total specialization rule
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Figure 3-6 Examples of completeness constraints (cont.)
b) Partial specialization rule
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Constraints in Supertype/ Disjointness constraint Disjointness Constraints:
Whether an instance of a supertype may
simultaneously be a member of two (or more) subtypes Disjoint Rule: An instance of the supertype
can be only ONE of the subtypes
Overlap Rule: An instance of the supertype could be more than one of the subtypes
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Figure 3-7 Examples of disjointness constraints
a) Disjoint rule
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Figure 3-7 Examples of disjointness constraints (cont.)
b) Overlap rule
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Constraints in Supertype/ Subtype Discriminators Subtype Discriminator:
An attribute of the supertype whose values determine the target subtype(s) Disjoint a simple attribute with alternative
values to indicate the possible subtypes
Overlapping a composite attribute whose subparts pertain to different subtypes. Each subpart contains a Boolean value to indicate whether or not the instance belongs to the associated subtype
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Figure 3-8 Introducing a subtype discriminator (disjoint rule)
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Figure 3-9 Subtype discriminator (overlap rule)
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Figure 3-10 Example of supertype/subtype hierarchy
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