How to handle a many-to-many relationship with PHP

Generator?
Last modified: Jul 19, 2010

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Abstract

Below is a step-by-step explanation of how to create a master-detail presentation for relationships that

are multivalued in both directions. The information represented in this article describes the usage of PHP

Generators for: MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Oracle,SQLite, Firebird, IBM DB2, SQL

Anywhere, MaxDB.

Problem

Detail presentations for tables linked by one-to-many relationships are created with PHP

Generator with a couple of clicks. Let's see the implementation of such presentation for two

entities 'employee' and 'office' where one employee can work at more than one office and an

office can have more than one employee assigned (a many-to-many relationship).

Picture 1. Diagram of the many-to-many relationship

In database design, the standard decision of the problem is the breaking of such relationship

into two one-to-many relationships and creating a new (junction/link) table to stand between

the two existing tables.

Picture 2. Diagram with the

junction table
SQL definitions of the tables are as follows:

Listing 1. Initial table definitions

CREATE TABLE employee (

id int AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
name varchar(50) NOT NULL,
occupation varchar(20),
phone varchar(15),
/* Keys */
PRIMARY KEY (id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE office (

id int AUTO_INCREMENT NOT NULL,
address varchar(200) NOT NULL,
/* Keys */
PRIMARY KEY (id)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;

Listing 2. SQL definition of the junction table

CREATE TABLE employee_office (

employee_id int NOT NULL,
office_id int NOT NULL,
/* Keys */
PRIMARY KEY (employee_id, office_id),
/* Foreign keys */
CONSTRAINT employee_office_relation_ibfk_1
FOREIGN KEY (employee_id)
REFERENCES employee(id)
ON DELETE RESTRICT
ON UPDATE RESTRICT,
CONSTRAINT employee_office_relation_ibfk_2
FOREIGN KEY (office_id)
REFERENCES office(id)
ON DELETE RESTRICT
 ON UPDATE RESTRICT
) ENGINE = InnoDB;

To see the list of offices and lists of employees assigned to selected offices on one web page,

create a PHP script with a master-detail presentation.

Solution

Here are the steps involved in the implementation:

• Configuring datasources

• Specifying a master-detail presentation for the 'office' table

Each step will be covered in detail below. To work with the prepared script, you need to have

Linux/Unix or Windows Web Server installed and PHP 5.

Step 1

Add the 'office' table as a datasource using the Add table or view button.

Picture 3. Adding table

Specify a query to be a datasource for the master-detail presentation. For this purpose use

the Create query button and enter the following query text:

Listing 3. Query

SELECT
eo.office_id,
e.*
FROM employee e
INNER JOIN employee_office eo
ON eo.employee_id = e.id

To allow users to insert, update and delete an employee to/from the employee list of the

selected office, check the Updatable query box and set update statements:

Listing 4. Update statements

INSERT INTO employee_office

VALUES
(:id, :office_id)

UPDATE employee_office
SET employee_id=:id
WHERE employee_id=:OLD_id AND office_id=:OLD_office_id

DELETE FROM employee_office

WHERE employee_id=:id AND office_id=:office_id
 Picture 4. Adding an updatable query

Step 2

To specify a master-detail presentation to be used to display a list of employees related to a

selected office, open the Page Editor of the 'office' table at the Details tab and follow

the Add... link of the popup menu. Set up the Detail relation editorproperties: select the

created query as Detail data source, 'id' as Master field and 'office_id' as Detail field.

Picture 5. Setting a master-

detail presentation
You can also adjust the appearance of the employee lists (details pages) with the Detail page

editor. We disallowed the content of 'office_id' and 'id' columns to be represented on the

prepared web page (see the screen below).

Picture 6. Setting a master-detail presentation

The result web page is shown below:

Picture 8. Result script