Feb 4 Recap of Jan 30 class.ppt

Feb 4: Recap of Jan 30 class Data Models: E-R and Relational (and some others of mostly historical interest) We examined the E-R model Entities, Relationships, and Attributes Diagram-based model Talked about Keys Some special cases for the E-R model Today we’ll examine two enhancements of the E-R model that allow representation of some hierarchical information, then move on to the Relational database model. Specialization-Generalization(ISA Hierarchy) This is a way to represent entity complexity specialization: top-down refinement of entities with distinct attributes Entity type BANK ACCOUNT might be subdivided into related but different types CHECKING ACCT and SAVINGS ACCT generalization: bottom-up abstraction of common attributes Course types DATABASE, SYSTEM, and NETWORK all have common attribute (project). From them we can abstract a new course type PRACTICAL COURSE other common course attributes are included (e.g., course number) ISA Hierarchy Example: Top-down Refinement Account entity with attributes balance and number additional complexity: we want to represent two subtypes of account Savings Account with attribute Interest Rate Checking Account with attribute Overdraft Limit ISA Hierarchy Example: Bottom-up Abstraction Three related entities with similar attribute project we abstract a new type of super entity Practical Course and link the three entities as subtypes other shared attributes (e.g., course number) are also promoted to the upper level entity Aggregation(Part-of Hierarchy) This is a way to represent relationship complexity relationships among relationships are not supported by the E-R model often we want to model lower-level relationships differently Groups of entities and relationships can be abstracted into higher level entities Part-of Hierarchy Example Entities driver, car, tires, doors, engine, seats, piston, valves Relationship drives is insufficient to model the complexity of this system Part-of relationships allow abstraction