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    DBMS Chapter 4

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    Abinet Arba

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    DBMS Chapter 4

    Uploaded by

    Abinet Arba
    1 views10 pages

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    DBMS Chapter 4

    Uploaded by

    Abinet Arba

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 10

    CHAPTER 4

    ENHANCED ENTITY –RELATIONSHIP


    AND OBJECT MODELING

    Outline
    Subclass, Super-class and Inheritance

    Specialization and Generalization

    Constraints and Characteristics of Specialization and


    Generalization
    1
    SUBCLASSES, SUPER CLASSES, AND
    INHERITANCE
     In many cases an entity type has numerous sub groupings or
    subtypes of its entities that are meaningful and need to be
    represented explicitly because of their significance to the
    database application.
     For example, the entities that are members of the
    EMPLOYEE entity type may be distinguished further into
    SECRETARY,
    ENGINEER,MANAGER,TECHNICIAN,SALARIED_EMPL
    OYEE,HOURLY_EMPLOYEE, and so on.
     The set of entities in each of the latter groupings is a subset of
    the entities that belong to the EMPLOYEE entity set, meaning
    that every entity that is a member of one of these sub
    groupings is also an employee. We call each of these sub
    groupings a subclass or subtype of the EMPLOYEE entity
    type, and the EMPLOYEE entity type is called the super
    class or super type for each of these subclasses. 2
    EXAMPLE

    3
    Relationships and attributes of super class are
    inherited to subclass (in particular primary key
    attribute(s)); subclass can have additional
    attributes and relationships
     An entity cannot exist merely by being a
    member of only a subclass.

    4
    SPECIALIZATION AND GENERALIZATION
    Specialization is the process of defining a set of
    subclasses of an entity type. (top-down)
    This entity type is called the super class of the
    specialization. The set of subclasses that forms a
    specialization is defined on the basis of some
    distinguishing characteristic of the entities in the super
    class.
    Generalization
     Reverse process of specialization (bottom-up); identify

    common features of entity types and generalize them into


    single super class (including primary key!) 5
    DIAGRAMMATIC NOTATION FOR
    SPECIALIZATION

    6
    CONT…
     HOURLY EMPS is a subclass of EMPLOYEES
    and
    thus inherits its attributes and relationships (same
    for CONTRACT EMPS).

    7
    DIAGRAMMATIC NOTATION FOR GENERALIZATION

    8
    DESIGN CONSTRAINTS ON A
    SPECIALIZATION/GENERALIZATION
    Constraint on which entities can be members of a given lower-level
    entity set.
     condition-defined
     Example: all customers over 65 years are members of senior-
    citizen entity set; senior-citizen ISA person.
     user-defined
    Constraint on whether or not entities may belong to more than one
    lower-level entity set within a single generalization.
     Disjoint
     an entity can belong to only one lower-level entity set

     Noted in E-R diagram by having multiple lower-level entity


    sets link to the same triangle
     Overlapping
     an entity can belong to more than one lower-level entity set 9
    CONT…
    Completeness constraint -- specifies whether or not an entity in
    the higher-level entity set must belong to at least one of the
    lower-level entity sets within a generalization.
     total: an entity must belong to one of the lower-level entity
    sets
     partial: an entity need not belong to one of the lower-level
    entity sets
    Restricts the design of the Data Base Management
    System
    Restricts the design of the Data Base Management
    System
    Restricts the design of the Data Base Management
    System 10

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