Many to Many relationship using SQL and Linq (entity framework/to entities)

Question

I have two tables:

- Attendees
- Events

Normally, I would create a mapping table 'EventAttendeeMap' to link these tables into a many to many relationship.

Is this the best way of doing so? Should I store the list of AttendeeIds in an xml column instead on the Events table?

I am using .NET 3.5/4 with Linq as the DAL (although I think this is irrelevant to the design question being asked, possibly).

Interested to see what people's opinions are.

Thanks. Dave

score 4 · Accepted Answer · 2010-08-20T10:51:09.973

4

A mapping table is definitely the best way to do it - the Entity Framework will convert the mapping table into a collection of entities on both sides and the table itself will essentially disappear.

edited Aug 20 '10 at 10:51

answered Aug 20 '10 at 10:38

Thanks for your responses people (sorry you're both right, so the first post gets the answer flag, nothing personal.) Good to know I'm thinking in the right direction. – Dave Aug 20 '10 at 11:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:26

1

In short yes - create a mapping table to hold the event id and the attendee id.

There is a good question here that might be of interest to you.

edited May 23 '17 at 10:26

Community

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answered Aug 20 '10 at 10:38

codingbadger

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Many to Many relationship using SQL and Linq (entity framework/to entities)

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