Name: Zara

Assignment: 1

Chapter 3 Exercise

7. A rental car agency classifies the vehicles it rents into four categories: compact, midsize, full-size, and
sport utility. The agency wants to record the following data for all vehicles: Vehicle ID, Make, Model, Year,
and Color. There are no unique attributes for any of the four classes of vehicle. The entity type vehicle
has a relationship (named Rents) with a customer entity type. None of the four vehicle classes has a
unique relationship with an entity type. Would you consider creating a supertype/subtype relationship
for this problem? Why or why not?

Yes, I would consider creating a supertype/subtype relationship for this problem.

A supertype/subtype relationship is appropriate when you have multiple entity types that share
common attributes but also have unique attributes specific to each subtype. In this scenario,
although all vehicles share common attributes such as Vehicle ID, Make, Model, Year, and Color,
there are also specific attributes or characteristics that distinguish each subtype (compact,
midsize, full-size, sport utility).

For example, each subtype may have unique attributes such as:

- Compact: Fuel efficiency, Number of doors

- Midsize: Seating capacity, Engine size

- Full-size: Trunk space, Transmission type

- Sport utility: Four-wheel drive capability, Ground clearance

By creating a supertype/subtype relationship, you can have a single "Vehicle" supertype entity
that contains the common attributes shared by all vehicles, and then separate subtype entities
for each vehicle category (compact, midsize, full-size, sport utility) that contain the specific
attributes unique to each category.

This approach helps in organizing the data more effectively, allows for better data integrity and
consistency, and facilitates querying and reporting on specific vehicle types more efficiently.
Additionally, it provides flexibility to add new vehicle types in the future without significant
changes to the database structure.