Chapter 4:

The Enhanced E-R Model and

Business Rules
Modern Database Management
6th Edition
Jeffrey A. Hoffer, Mary B. Prescott, Fred R.
McFadden

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 Supertypes and Subtypes
 Subtype: A subgrouping of the entities in an entity type
which has attributes that are distinct from those in other
subgroupings
 Supertype: An generic entity type that has a
relationship with one or more subtypes
 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 4-1
Basic notation for
supertype/subtype
relationships

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 Figure 4-2 -- Employee supertype with three subtypes

All employee subtypes

will have emp nbr, name,
address, and date-hired

Each employee subtype

will also have its own
attributes

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 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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Figure 4-3 -- 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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 Figure 4-4 – Example of generalization
(a) Three entity types: CAR, TRUCK, and MOTORCYCLE

All these types

of vehicles
have common
attributes

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 Figure 4-4(b) – Generalization to VEHICLE supertype

So we put
the shared
attributes in
a supertype

Note: no subtype for motorcycle, since it has no unique attributes

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 Figure 4-5 – Example of specialization
(a) Entity type PART
Applies only to purchased parts

Only applies to
manufactured
parts

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Figure 4-5(b) –
Specialization to MANUFACTURED PART and PURCHASED PART

Created 2 subtypes

Note: multivalued attribute was replaced by a relationship to another entity

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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 4-6 – Examples of completeness constraints
(a) Total specialization rule

A patient must be either

an outpatient or a
resident patient

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 Figure 4-6(b) – Partial specialization rule

A vehicle could be a
car, a truck, or neither

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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 4-7 – Examples of disjointness constraints
(a) Disjoint rule

A patient can either be outpatient

or resident, but not both

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 Figure 4-7(b) Overlap rule

A part may be
both purchased
and manufactured

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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 4-8 – Introducing a subtype discriminator (disjoint rule)

A simple attribute with

different possible values
indicating the subtype

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 Figure 4-9 – Subtype discriminator (overlap rule)

A composite attribute
with sub-attributes
indicating “yes” or “no”
to determine whether it
is of each subtype

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 Figure 4-10 – Example of supertype/subtype hierarchy

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 Entity Clusters
 EER diagrams are difficult to read when
there are too many entities and relationships
 Solution: group entities and relationships
into entity clusters
 Entity cluster: set of one or more entity
types and associated relationships grouped
into a single abstract entity type

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 Figure 4-13(a) –
Possible entity clusters
for Pine Valley Furniture

Related
groups of
entities could
become
clusters

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 Figure 4-13(b) – EER diagram of PVF entity clusters

More readable,
isn’t it?

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 Business rules
 Statements that define or constrain some aspect of the
business.
 Constraints can impact:
– Structure (definition, domain, relationship)
– Behavior (operational constraints)
 Classification of business rules:
– Derivation – rule derived from other knowledge
– Structural assertion – rule expressing static structure
– Action assertion – rule expressing constraints/control of
organizational actions

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 Figure 4-15 –
EER depiction of
business rules
classification

Source: adapted from GUIDE Business Rules Project, 1997.

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 Action Assertion Classifications
 Result
– Condition – IF/THEN rule
– Integrity constraint – must always be true
– Authorization – privilege statement
 Form
– Enabler – leads to creation of new object
– Timer – allows or disallows an action
– Executive – executes one or more actions
 Rigor
– Controlling – something must or must not happen
– Influencing – guideline for which a notification must occur

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 Stating an Action Assertion
 Anchor Object – an object on which actions
are limited
 Action – creation, deletion, update, or read
 Corresponding Objects – an object
influencing the ability to perform an action
on another business rule
Action assertion will identify corresponding objects that
constrain the ability to perform actions on anchor objects

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 Figure 4-16 – Data model segment for class scheduling

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 Figure 4-17 – Business Rule 1: For a faculty member to be assigned
to teach a section of a course, the faculty member must be qualified to
teach the course for which that section is scheduled

Corresponding object

In this case, the

Action assertion
action assertion
is a Restriction
Anchor object

Corresponding object

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 Figure 4-18 –Business Rule 2: For a faculty member to be assigned to
teach a section of a course, the faculty member must not be assigned to
teach a total of more than three course sections

In this case, the

action assertion
is an Corresponding object

Upper LIMit
Anchor object Action assertion

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