Collection of similar entities or concepts into a higher level concept. EMPLOYEE class collects all employees into one class A class has properties called “class properties”. EMPLOYEE class has class properties - ., average salary, total number of employees. Each member has values for own properties (. name, address, salary): called member properties. | Enhanced Entity-Relationship and UML Modeling Enhanced-ER (EER) Model Concepts Includes all modeling concepts of basic ER Additional concepts: subclasses/superclasses, specialization/generalization, categories, attribute inheritance The resulting model is called the enhanced-ER or Extended ER (E2R or EER) model It is used to model applications more completely and accurately if needed It includes some object-oriented concepts, such as inheritance Subclasses and Superclasses (1) An entity type may have additional meaningful subgroupings of its entities Example: EMPLOYEE may be further grouped into SECRETARY, ENGINEER, MANAGER, TECHNICIAN, SALARIED_EMPLOYEE, HOURLY_EMPLOYEE, Each of these groupings 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. Example: EMPLOYEE/SECRETARY, EMPLOYEE/TECHNICIAN Subclasses and Superclasses (2) These are also called IS-A . | Enhanced Entity-Relationship and UML Modeling Enhanced-ER (EER) Model Concepts Includes all modeling concepts of basic ER Additional concepts: subclasses/superclasses, specialization/generalization, categories, attribute inheritance The resulting model is called the enhanced-ER or Extended ER (E2R or EER) model It is used to model applications more completely and accurately if needed It includes some object-oriented concepts, such as inheritance Subclasses and Superclasses (1) An entity type may have additional meaningful subgroupings of its entities Example: EMPLOYEE may be further grouped into SECRETARY, ENGINEER, MANAGER, TECHNICIAN, SALARIED_EMPLOYEE, HOURLY_EMPLOYEE, Each of these groupings 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. Example: EMPLOYEE/SECRETARY, EMPLOYEE/TECHNICIAN Subclasses and Superclasses (2) 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 Example: A salaried employee who is also an engineer belongs to the two subclasses ENGINEER and SALARIED_EMPLOYEE It is not necessary that every entity in a superclass be a member of some subclass 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 It also inherits all relationships Specialization Is the process of defining a set of subclasses of a superclass The set of subclasses is based upon some .
