Chapter 4

The Enhanced
Entity–Relationship
(EER) Model
Introduction- History of EER Model
● The ER modeling concepts (as discussed in Chapter 3) are sufficient for representing many
database schemas for traditional databases in business and industry.
● However, since the late 1970s, numerous types of databases have come up with more complex
requirements than the tradition ones. Database designers have tried to develop schemas that reflect
the data properties and constraints more precisely.
● These complex databases include databases for engineering design and manufacturing
(Computer-Aided Design/Manufacturing), telecommunications, complex software systems, and
geographic information systems (GISs).
● This led to the development of additional semantic data modeling concepts that were
incorporated into the already existing conceptual ER model.
● In this chapter, we will study the features that have been proposed for these semantic data models
and show how the ER model can be enhanced to include these concepts which leads to the
Enhanced/Extended ER (EER) model.
Concepts of EER Model
● The EER model includes all the modeling concepts of the ER model (which were discussed in
Chapter 3)

● In addition, it includes the concepts of:

1. Subclass and Superclass

2. Specialisation and Generalisation
3. Category or Union Type
4. Attribute and Relationship Inheritance

● EER also includes some object-oriented concepts such as Inheritance

● The schema diagram representations of EER concepts are called EER diagrams.
SUBTYPE or SUBCLASS
● An entity type may have additional meaningful subgroupings of its entities
● For example: EMPLOYEE may be further grouped into:
1. SECRETARY, ENGINEER and TECHNICIAN based on the EMPLOYEE’s Job
2. SALARIED_EMPLOYEE, HOURLY_EMPLOYEE based on the EMPLOYEE’s method of pay
● Each of these subgroupings a Subclass or Subtype of the EMPLOYEE entity type is called the
Superclass or Supertype for each of these subclasses
● The relationship between a superclass and any one of its subclasses is called a
Superclass/Subclass or Supertype/Subtype or simply Class/Subclass Relationship. In the
previous example, EMPLOYEE/SECRETARY and EMPLOYEE/TECHNICIAN are two
class/subclass relationships
● A class/subclass relationship is also called an IS-A (or IS-AN) relationship because of the way we
refer to the concept. We say a SECRETARY is an EMPLOYEE, a TECHNICIAN is an EMPLOYEE,
and so on.
● The set or collection of entities in each of the subgroupings 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 subgroupings
is also an EMPLOYEE.
● An entity can belong to multiple Subclasses. In the previous example, a salaried employee who is
also an engineer belongs to the two subclasses ENGINEER and SALARIED_EMPLOYEE of the
EMPLOYEE entity type.
● However, it is not necessary that every entity in a superclass is a member of some subclass.
● NOTE: An entity cannot exist in the database merely by being a member of a subclass; it must also
be a member of the superclass.
● Type Inheritance:
1. In Chapter 3, we saw that the type of an entity is defined by the attributes it possesses and
the relationship types in which it participates.
2. An entity that is a member of a subclass inherits all the attributes and relationship types of the
entity as a member of the superclass.
3. But, the entity in the subclass can also possess values for its specific attributes apart from the
ones inherited from the superclass.
Specialization
● Specialization is the process of defining a set of subclasses of an entity type; this entity type is
called the superclass 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 superclass.
● For example, the set of subclasses {SECRETARY, ENGINEER, TECHNICIAN} is a specialization of
the superclass EMPLOYEE that distinguishes among employee entities based on the job type of
each employee.

● EER Diagram Representation:

1. The subclasses that define a specialization are attached by lines to a circle that represents
the specialization, which is connected in turn to the superclass.
2. The subset symbol on each line connecting a subclass to the circle indicates the direction of
the superclass/subclass relationship.
 ● Specific (or Local) Attributes: Attributes that apply only to entities of a particular subclass,
such as TypingSpeed of SECRETARY, are attached to rectangle representing that subclass
● Specific Relationship Types: A subclass can participate in specific relationship types such as
the HOURLY_EMPLOYEE subclass participating in the BELONGS_TO relationship

● In the next slide, we have a few entity instances that belong to subclasses of the {SECRETARY,
ENGINEER, TECHNICIAN} specialization.
1. An entity that belongs to a subclass represents the same real-world entity as the entity
connected to it in the EMPLOYEE superclass, even though the same entity is shown twice.
For example, e1 is shown in both EMPLOYEE and SECRETARY.
2. As the figure suggests, a superclass/subclass relationship resembles a 1:1 relationship at the
instance level. The main difference is that in a 1:1 relationship two distinct entities are related,
whereas in a superclass/subclass relationship the entity in the subclass is the same real-world
entity as the entity in the superclass but is playing a specialized role. For example, an
EMPLOYEE specialized in the role of SECRETARY, or an EMPLOYEE specialized in the role
of TECHNICIAN.
Generalization
● Reverse process of Specialization
● A process of abstraction in which we suppress the differences among several entity types, identify
their common features, and generalize them into a single superclass of which the original entity
types are special subclasses
● For example, consider the entity types CAR and TRUCK shown in next slide. Because they have
several common attributes, they can be generalized into the entity type VEHICLE. Both CAR and
TRUCK are now subclasses of the generalized superclass VEHICLE.
● Generalization: The process of defining a generalized entity type from the given entity types
● The generalization process can be viewed as being functionally the inverse of the specialization
process; we can view {CAR, TRUCK} as a specialization of VEHICLE rather than viewing VEHICLE
as a generalization of CAR and TRUCK.
● A diagrammatic notation to distinguish between generalization and specialization is used in some
design methodologies. An arrow pointing to the generalized super-class represents a generalization
process, whereas arrows pointing to the specialized subclasses represent a specialization process.