How to implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships while designing tables?

Can anyone explain how to implement one-to-one, one-to-many and many-to-many relationships while designing tables with some examples?

Solution 1:

One-to-one: Use a foreign key to the referenced table:

student: student_id, first_name, last_name, address_id
address: address_id, address, city, zipcode, student_id # you can have a
                                                        # "link back" if you need

You must also put a unique constraint on the foreign key column (addess.student_id) to prevent multiple rows in the child table (address) from relating to the same row in the referenced table (student).

One-to-many: Use a foreign key on the many side of the relationship linking back to the "one" side:

teachers: teacher_id, first_name, last_name # the "one" side
classes:  class_id, class_name, teacher_id  # the "many" side

Many-to-many: Use a junction table (example):

student: student_id, first_name, last_name
classes: class_id, name, teacher_id
student_classes: class_id, student_id     # the junction table

Example queries:

 -- Getting all students for a class:

    SELECT s.student_id, last_name
      FROM student_classes sc 
INNER JOIN students s ON s.student_id = sc.student_id
     WHERE sc.class_id = X

 -- Getting all classes for a student: 

    SELECT c.class_id, name
      FROM student_classes sc 
INNER JOIN classes c ON c.class_id = sc.class_id
     WHERE sc.student_id = Y

Solution 2:

Here are some real-world examples of the types of relationships:

One-to-one (1:1)

A relationship is one-to-one if and only if one record from table A is related to a maximum of one record in table B.

To establish a one-to-one relationship, the primary key of table B (with no orphan record) must be the secondary key of table A (with orphan records).

For example:

CREATE TABLE Gov(
    GID number(6) PRIMARY KEY, 
    Name varchar2(25), 
    Address varchar2(30), 
    TermBegin date,
    TermEnd date
); 

CREATE TABLE State(
    SID number(3) PRIMARY KEY,
    StateName varchar2(15),
    Population number(10),
    SGID Number(4) REFERENCES Gov(GID), 
    CONSTRAINT GOV_SDID UNIQUE (SGID)
);

INSERT INTO gov(GID, Name, Address, TermBegin) 
values(110, 'Bob', '123 Any St', '1-Jan-2009');

INSERT INTO STATE values(111, 'Virginia', 2000000, 110);

One-to-many (1:M)

A relationship is one-to-many if and only if one record from table A is related to one or more records in table B. However, one record in table B cannot be related to more than one record in table A.

To establish a one-to-many relationship, the primary key of table A (the "one" table) must be the secondary key of table B (the "many" table).

For example:

CREATE TABLE Vendor(
    VendorNumber number(4) PRIMARY KEY,
    Name varchar2(20),
    Address varchar2(20),
    City varchar2(15),
    Street varchar2(2),
    ZipCode varchar2(10),
    Contact varchar2(16),
    PhoneNumber varchar2(12),
    Status varchar2(8),
    StampDate date
);

CREATE TABLE Inventory(
    Item varchar2(6) PRIMARY KEY,
    Description varchar2(30),
    CurrentQuantity number(4) NOT NULL,
    VendorNumber number(2) REFERENCES Vendor(VendorNumber),
    ReorderQuantity number(3) NOT NULL
);

Many-to-many (M:M)

A relationship is many-to-many if and only if one record from table A is related to one or more records in table B and vice-versa.

To establish a many-to-many relationship, create a third table called "ClassStudentRelation" which will have the primary keys of both table A and table B.

CREATE TABLE Class(
    ClassID varchar2(10) PRIMARY KEY, 
    Title varchar2(30),
    Instructor varchar2(30), 
    Day varchar2(15), 
    Time varchar2(10)
);

CREATE TABLE Student(
    StudentID varchar2(15) PRIMARY KEY, 
    Name varchar2(35),
    Major varchar2(35), 
    ClassYear varchar2(10), 
    Status varchar2(10)
);  

CREATE TABLE ClassStudentRelation(
    StudentID varchar2(15) NOT NULL,
    ClassID varchar2(14) NOT NULL,
    FOREIGN KEY (StudentID) REFERENCES Student(StudentID), 
    FOREIGN KEY (ClassID) REFERENCES Class(ClassID),
    UNIQUE (StudentID, ClassID)
);