Re: A Question On Many-To-Many Linking Table(s)

"--CELKO--" <71062.1056_at_compuserve.com> wrote in message news:c0d87ec0.0209221923.42b0561b_at_posting.google.com...
> aleatory_at_hotmail.com (aleatory) wrote in message
news:<a68a4ee0.0209220745.4442210e_at_posting.google.com>...
> > Hi all,
> >> According to some of the database books I have, they say that
> many-to-many implies a linking table(s). <<
>
> That is a terrible term; tables are either entities or relationships
> and not both. The term "link" is an old one we used for pointers, as
> in "linked list" and that low level concept has no place in a
> relational model.

Umm, I'm guessing you don't know much about programming. A pointer is called a pointer or a reference. Not a link. A "linked list" is so called only because each item contains a pointer or a reference to another (ie: next) item in the list. The link merely directs you to a different item. I think that concept is represented fairly well in the term "linking tables". If you referred to the programming construct of pointers as "links" generally, you did so erroneously and ill-informed, as "link" refers only to a very specific use for a pointer, not a definition. This of course does not speak to the notion of programming language concepts and relational database concepts belonging to some mutually exclusive vernacular, which is ridiculous. Index as a programming concept (for arrays) in no way is similar to the concept of index as a relational database concept. I'm not sure that makes either a "terrible term".

J Received on Mon Sep 23 2002 - 21:15:29 CEST