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

Question

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

Answer 1

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)
);