Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 2.10. Two users with differently qualified relationships to the same address
The third way is to treat the user's occupancy of an address as a node in its own right.
This is a technique called
reification
(literally, “making into a thing”), where a relationship
betweentwonodesisbrokenintotworelationshipsjoinedtogetherbyanintermediatenode
that represents the original relationship. This is useful when the relationship itself has re-
lationships with other entities; for example, if a user's occupancy of an address is under a
tenancy, managed by a letting agency.
Figure 2.11
shows how this might work.
