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It occurs when a (master) table links to multiple tables in a one-to-many relationship. The issue derives its name from the visual appearance of the model when it is drawn in an entity–relationship diagram, as the linked tables 'fan out' from the master table. This type of model resembles a star schema, which is a common design in data ...
An associative entity is a term used in relational and entity–relationship theory. A relational database requires the implementation of a base relation (or base table) to resolve many-to-many relationships. A base relation representing this kind of entity is called, informally, an associative table. An associative entity (using Chen notation)
For example, as soon as you want to find seasonal or geographical trends in the sales of the item, you need information from the related Order record. An order would not exist without a product and a person to create the order, so it could be argued that an order would be described as a weak entity and that products ordered would be a ...
For this example it is assumed that each book has only one author. A table that conforms to the relational model has a primary key which uniquely identifies a row. In our example, the primary key is a composite key of {Title, Format} (indicated by the underlining):
A sample entity–relationship diagram. One of the most common types of conceptual schemas is the ER (entity–relationship model) diagrams. Attributes in ER diagrams are usually modeled as an oval with the name of the attribute, linked to the entity or relationship that contains the attribute.
For example, think of A as Authors, and B as Books. An Author can write several Books, and a Book can be written by several Authors. In a relational database management system, such relationships are usually implemented by means of an associative table (also known as join table, junction table or cross-reference table), say, AB with two one-to-many relationships A → AB and B → AB.
In systems analysis, a one-to-many relationship is a type of cardinality that refers to the relationship between two entities (see also entity–relationship model). For example, take a car and an owner of the car. The car can only be owned by one owner at a time or not owned at all, and an owner could own zero, one, or multiple cars.
For example, consider a database of electronic health records. Such a database could contain tables like the following: A doctor table with information about physicians. A patient table for medical subjects undergoing treatment. An appointment table with an entry for each hospital visit. Natural relationships exist between these entities: