Chapter 4

Enhanced Entity-Relationship
(EER) Modeling
Chapter Outline
 EER stands for Enhanced ER or Extended ER
 EER Model Concepts
 Includes all modeling concepts of basic ER
 Additional concepts:
 subclasses/superclasses
 specialization/generalization
 categories (UNION types)
 attribute and relationship inheritance
 These are fundamental to conceptual modeling
 The additional EER concepts are used to model
applications more completely and more accurately
 EER includes some object-oriented concepts, such as
inheritance

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 2

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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 3

Subclasses and Superclasses

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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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 6

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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 7

Representing Specialization in EER
Diagrams

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 8

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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 9

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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 10

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 (3)

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Generalization (1)
 Generalization is 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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 13

Generalization (2)

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Generalization and Specialization

 Data Modeling with Specialization and

Generalization
 A superclass or subclass represents a collection
(or set or grouping) of entities
 It also represents a particular type of entity
 Shown in rectangles in EER diagrams (as are
entity types)
 We can call all entity types (and their
corresponding collections) classes, whether they
are entity types, superclasses, or subclasses

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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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 16

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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 17

Displaying an attribute-defined
specialization in EER diagrams

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 18

Constraints on Specialization and
Generalization (3)

 Two basic constraints can apply to a

specialization/generalization:
 Disjointness Constraint:
 Completeness Constraint:

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 19

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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 20

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

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 21

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.

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 22

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)

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 25

Shared Subclass “Engineering_Manager”

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 26

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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Categories (UNION TYPES) (1)
 Entities in a shared subclass belong also to all its
superclasses
 In some cases, we need to model a subclass
whose entities belong to (at least) one of its
superclasses
 Such a subclass is called a category or UNION
TYPE

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 29

Summary
 Introduced the EER model concepts
 Class/subclass relationships
 Specialization and generalization
 Inheritance
 These augment the basic ER model concepts
introduced in Chapter 3
 EER diagrams and alternative notations were
presented

Copyright © 2007 Ramez Elmasri and Shamkant B. Navathe Slide 4- 30