CHAPTER 3:

THE ENHANCED E-R

MODEL

Modern Database Management 1

OBJECTIVES
 Definition of terms
 Use of supertype/subtype relationships
 Use of generalization and specialization techniques
 Specification of completeness and disjointness constraints
 Develop supertype/subtype hierarchies for realistic business
situations

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SUPERTYPES AND
SUBTYPES
 Subtype:A subgrouping of the entities in an entity type that
has attributes distinct from those in other subgroupings
A generic entity type that has a relationship with
 Supertype:
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 4-1 Basic notation for supertype/subtype notation

a) EER

notation

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 Figure 4-1 Basic notation for supertype/subtype notation (cont.)

b) Microsoft
Visio
Notation

Different modeling tools may have different notation for the same
modeling constructs

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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 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

attributes 11
Figure 4-5 Example of specialization
a) Entity type PART

Only applies to
manufactured parts

Applies only to purchased parts

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{Supplier(Supplier
ID, Unit_Price)}
 Figure 4-5 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
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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 Examples of completeness constraints (cont.)
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 Examples of disjointness constraints (cont.)
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

“C”

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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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Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc. Publishing as Prentice Hall

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