Enhanced Entity-

Relationship (EER)
Modeling
• 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
Subclasses and Superclasses
• 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
Subclasses and Superclasses
• 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
• …
Subclasses and Superclasses
• 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
Subclasses and Superclasses
• 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
Representing Specialization in EER Diagrams
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
 SPECIALIZATION

• 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
 SPECIALIZATION

• 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
SPECIALIZATION
 GENERALIZATION

• 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
GENERALIZATION
 GENERALIZATION AND SPECIALIZATION

• Diagrammatic notation are sometimes used to distinguish between

generalization and specialization
• Arrow pointing to the generalized superclass represents a generalization
• Arrows pointing to the specialized subclasses represent a specialization
• We do not use this notation because it is often subjective as to which process
is more appropriate for a particular situation
• We advocate not drawing any arrows
 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
 CONSTRAINTS ON SPECIALIZATION AND
GENERALIZATION

• 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
 CONSTRAINTS ON SPECIALIZATION AND
GENERALIZATION

• 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
Displaying an attribute-defined specialization in EER
diagrams
 CONSTRAINTS ON SPECIALIZATION AND
GENERALIZATION

• Two basic constraints can apply to a specialization/generalization:

• Disjointness Constraint:
• Completeness Constraint:
 CONSTRAINTS ON SPECIALIZATION AND
GENERALIZATION

• 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
 CONSTRAINTS ON SPECIALIZATION AND
GENERALIZATION

• 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
 CONSTRAINTS ON SPECIALIZATION AND
GENERALIZATION

• 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.
Example of disjoint partial Specialization
Example of overlapping total Specialization
 SPECIALIZATION/GENERALIZATION
HIERARCHIES, LATTICES & SHARED SUBCLASSES

• 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)
Shared Subclass “Engineering_Manager”
 SPECIALIZATION/GENERALIZATION
HIERARCHIES, LATTICES & SHARED SUBCLASSES

• In a lattice or hierarchy, a subclass inherits attributes not only of its direct

superclass, but also of all its predecessor superclasses
• A subclass with more than one superclass is called a shared subclass (multiple
inheritance)
• Can have:
• specialization hierarchies or lattices, or
• generalization hierarchies or lattices,
• depending on how they were derived
• We just use specialization (to stand for the end result of either specialization or
generalization)
 SPECIALIZATION/GENERALIZATION

• 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
Specialization / Generalization Lattice Example
(UNIVERSITY)
Categories (UNION TYPES)
• All of the superclass/subclass relationships we have seen thus far
have a single superclass
• A shared subclass is a subclass in:
• more than one distinct superclass/subclass relationships
• each relationships has a single superclass
• shared subclass leads to multiple inheritance
• In some cases, we need to model a single superclass/subclass
relationship with more than one superclass
• Superclasses can represent different entity types
• Such a subclass is called a category or UNION TYPE
Categories (UNION TYPES)
• Example: In a database for vehicle registration, a vehicle
owner can be a PERSON, a BANK (holding a lien on a vehicle)
or a COMPANY.
• A category (UNION type) called OWNER is created to represent a
subset of the union of the three superclasses COMPANY, BANK,
and PERSON
• A category member must exist in at least one of its superclasses
• Difference from shared subclass, which is a:
• subset of the intersection of its superclasses
• shared subclass member must exist in all of its superclasses
Two categories (UNION types): OWNER,
REGISTERED_VEHICLE