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Understanding and exploring managed associations in CAP

This series of steps will take us on a journey exploring managed associations in the SAP Cloud Application Programming Model, where we go from a simple one-to-one managed association and ultimately end up at the stage where we've created a many-to-many relationship between two entities using a pair of (one-) to-many managed associations and a link entity to join them together.

The journey is based on the simplest thing that could possibly work: two classic entities books and authors, with the minimum number of elements. The data is classic too, taken from the bookshop sample in the SAP-samples/cloud-cap-samples repo, and contains just a handful of publications and authors. The journey starts with the two entities independent of each other, and the relationships are built up from there.

Throughout, we monitor the generation of two key components - the OData metadata (in EDMX) and the SQL DDL statements that are generated for the persistence layer. We also monitor the output of the CAP server, which we run in "watch" mode. For everything we monitor, we examine any warnings or errors as they occur too, as well as make sure we understand what changes take place, and why.

The journey leads us on a path that ends up with a simple OData V4 service providing books and authors data, ultimately one that allows for books to have multiple authors, and authors to have written multiple books. But the important part of the journey is not that destination, it's the path we will take.

You can take this journey with whatever tools, IDEs, editors and command lines you feel comfortable with.

If you're looking for a "turnkey" setup, then we recommend you use Microsoft VS Code which can then benefit from the dev container definition, which describes a container image containing everything you need, from the command line tools (and the ultimate shell environment itself, i.e. Bash, naturally), Node.js, and the Node.js-based SAP Cloud Application Programming Model development kit "@sap/cds-dk".

The instructions here will assume you're using this approach, i.e. using VS Code and that you also have a container runtime (such as Docker Desktop) for VS Code to use.

If your editor has an Auto Save facility (VS Code does), you should turn it off, mostly so you can make changes and decide when you want to observe the effects, and specifically because you'll need to make a coordinated change to a couple of files, and it's better if you make all the changes first and save them together afterwards.

Here's what the setting looks like in VS Code:

There are some simple monitoring scripts in this repo, in the utils/ directory, to monitor for changes to files and to emit (and re-emit everytime anything changes) the EDMX (the OData metadata for the service) and the SQL DDL statements for the tables and views at the persistence layer. Also in the utils/ directory are a couple of simple CSV related scripts that we'll use.

Here are the steps. In most of the steps the observations that we make (on the EDMX, SQL and CAP server output) will be in a "Notes" subsection within that step.

01 Clone this repo and set up a new empty CAP project
02 Start with the basic persistence layer artifacts and set up the monitoring
03 Add an empty service
04 Add the Books entity but not inside the service
05 Put the Books entity inside the service
06 Add the Authors entity inside the service
07 Add a basic relationship with a to-one managed association, at the persistence layer
08 Add the author_ID field to the Books CSV data
09 Move the current to-one managed association from the persistence layer to the service layer
10 Add a reverse to-many managed association from Authors to Books
11 Fix the to-many managed association
12 Attempt to follow the to-many managed association from author to books
13 Create a link entity as the basis for a many-to-many relationship
14 Relate each of the Books and Authors entities to the new link entity
15 Add the link entity to the service
16 add data to the link entity to relate books and authors
17 add a further author and book relationship to define co-authorship

01 Clone this repo and set up a new empty CAP project

Branch: 01-clone-this-repo-and-set-up-a-new-empty-cap-project.

We'll be starting from scratch with a new, empty CAP project, within the context of this repo (as the simple monitoring scripts you'll use are in here).

👉 Clone this repo now, and open it in VS Code:

git clone https://github.com/qmacro/managed-associations-in-cap
code managed-associations-in-cap

This should start up VS Code and open within it the new managed-associations-in-cap/ directory containing a clone of this repo. Additionally, VS Code should notice the .devcontainer/ directory and contents, and prompt you to re-open in a container. You should do this.

👉 Once VS Code has re-opened things in the context of the defined container, open a new terminal and initialise a new CAP project directly in the directory you're now in:

cds init

This should create various files and directories.

02 Start with the basic persistence layer artifacts and set up monitoring

Branch: 02-start-with-the-basic-persistence-layer-artifacts-and-set-up-monitoring.

This is where we start the journey. Let's begin with just Books and Authors defined as entities in db/schema.cds, with no relationships between them. Some basic CSV data is all that we need. Note that at this point, no services are defined.

👉 Prepare the following files and content.

Create db/schema.cds with this content:

namespace bookshop;

entity Books {
  key ID : Integer;
  title  : String;
}
entity Authors {
  key ID : Integer;
  name   : String;
}

Create srv/main.cds with this content:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

Create db/data/bookshop-Books.csv with this content:

ID,title
201,Wuthering Heights
207,Jane Eyre
251,The Raven
252,Eleonora
271,Catweazle

Create db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv with this content:

ID,name
101,Emily Brontë
107,Charlotte Brontë
150,Edgar Allen Poe
170,Richard Carpenter

Now it's time to set up the monitoring.

👉 Run each of the following in separate terminals (in VS Code you can use the "split panes" facility in the integrated terminal for this):

./utils/monedmx ("EDMX")
./utils/monsql ("SQL")
cds watch ("SERVER")

Each of these will produce output as soon as we invoke them, and will continue to monitor for changes and re-produce output as appropriate.

Notes

EDMX: The error "There are no service definitions found at all in given model(s)" is emitted. While we have entity definitions, they are not yet exposed in any service. In fact, no service has been defined at all yet.

SQL: Basic DDL for creating TABLE artifacts only (no views) appears, and there are just the basic fields:

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

SERVER: Data is loaded successfully from the CSV files:

[cds] - connect to db > sqlite { database: ':memory:' }
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Books.csv
/> successfully deployed to sqlite in-memory db

But there is a message "No service definitions found in loaded models. Waiting for some to arrive...". Again, this makes sense, as we've not defined any services yet.

03 Add an empty service

Branch: 03-add-an-empty-service.

👉 Add service Z; (capital Z) to srv/main.cds so that it becomes:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

service Z;

Notes

EDMX: We now have a very basic (and empty) OData service (note the namespace is capital Z):

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<edmx:Edmx Version="4.0" xmlns:edmx="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edmx">
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://sap.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Common.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Common" Namespace="com.sap.vocabularies.Common.v1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://oasis-tcs.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Org.OData.Core.V1.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Core" Namespace="Org.OData.Core.V1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:DataServices>
    <Schema Namespace="Z" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">
      <EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer"/>
    </Schema>
  </edmx:DataServices>
</edmx:Edmx>

Within the main Schema section, there is an empty EntityContainer, and there are no EntityTypes.

SQL: No change.

SERVER: The message about no service definitions being found goes away and we see that it is serving service Z as lower case z (this is a CAP convention which can be overridden). At http://localhost:4004 links to the standard OData service document and metadata document are shown, but there are no service endpoints. The metadata document content (at http://localhost:4004/z/$metadata) is the same as the EDMX above. The service document (http://localhost:4004/z) has no real content; the important part (the list of entitysets available, in the value property) is empty:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata",
  "@odata.metadataEtag": "W/\"vRN6ru2cTrbbf2J+uTFQ1q6pPvqg8m4ot2mI8a7HpqU=\"",
  "value": []
}

04 Add the Books entity but not inside the service

Branch: 04-add-the-books-entity-but-not-inside-the-service.

👉 Add an entity specification in srv/main.cds, but not inside the service statement. The content of this file should now look like this:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

service Z;

entity Books as projection on bookshop.Books;

Notes

EDMX: This remains unchanged, as a basic and still empty service. Not surprisingly, as the entity we've just added wasn't within the context of the Z service (or any service).

SQL: A CREATE VIEW DDL stanza appears. Note that the name for the entity is not prefixed with any service name, i.e. it is CREATE VIEW Books and not CREATE VIEW Z_Books:

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE VIEW Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;

Views are most commonly used to represent the entity projections in a service. So from a persistence layer perspective, things are ready for this entity projection.

SERVER: There's no difference in the CAP server log output. Moreover, there's no sign of Books as a service endpoint at http://localhost:4004/ (as it's not actually defined within the Z service, i.e. for the same reason why it's not showing in the EDMX either).

05 Put the Books entity inside the service

Branch: 05-put-the-books-entity-inside-the-service.

👉 Now move the entity specification in srv/main.cds to within the service statement, so that the contents of srv/main.cds now look like this:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

service Z {
  entity Books as projection on bookshop.Books;
}

Notes

EDMX: Now the Books entity appears as an EntityType definition within the Schema, and the EntityContainer is no longer empty - it now contains an EntitySet defined that refers to that EntityType.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<edmx:Edmx Version="4.0" xmlns:edmx="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edmx">
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://sap.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Common.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Common" Namespace="com.sap.vocabularies.Common.v1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://oasis-tcs.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Org.OData.Core.V1.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Core" Namespace="Org.OData.Core.V1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:DataServices>
    <Schema Namespace="Z" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">
      <EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer">
        <EntitySet Name="Books" EntityType="Z.Books"/>
      </EntityContainer>
      <EntityType Name="Books">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="title" Type="Edm.String"/>
      </EntityType>
    </Schema>
  </edmx:DataServices>
</edmx:Edmx>

SQL: The CREATE VIEW DDL statement now specifies the name to be Z_Books, which includes the name of the service, and not just Books:

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE VIEW Z_Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;

SERVER: There's still no difference in the CAP server log output (there wouldn't be, for a simple addition of an endpoint in a service). But at http://localhost:4004 there's now a Books service endpoint shown. Selecting it (to make an OData query operation on the entityset, i.e. http://localhost:4004/z/Books) returns the data sourced from the CSV file, with ID and title values:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Books",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 201,
      "title": "Wuthering Heights"
    },
    {
      "ID": 207,
      "title": "Jane Eyre"
    },
    {
      "ID": 251,
      "title": "The Raven"
    },
    {
      "ID": 252,
      "title": "Eleonora"
    },
    {
      "ID": 271,
      "title": "Catweazle"
    }
  ]
}

06 Add the Authors entity inside the service

Branch: 06-add-the-authors-entity-inside-the-service.

👉 Add another entity specification within the service, for Authors, so that srv/main.cds now looks like this:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

service Z {
  entity Books as projection on bookshop.Books;
  entity Authors as projection on bookshop.Authors;
}

Notes

EDMX: A further EntityType and EntitySet pair appears, but note that there are no navigation properties between the two entities yet:

<edmx:Edmx Version="4.0" xmlns:edmx="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edmx">
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://sap.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Common.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Common" Namespace="com.sap.vocabularies.Common.v1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://oasis-tcs.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Org.OData.Core.V1.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Core" Namespace="Org.OData.Core.V1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:DataServices>
    <Schema Namespace="Z" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">
      <EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer">
        <EntitySet Name="Books" EntityType="Z.Books"/>
        <EntitySet Name="Authors" EntityType="Z.Authors"/>
      </EntityContainer>
      <EntityType Name="Books">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="title" Type="Edm.String"/>
      </EntityType>
      <EntityType Name="Authors">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
      </EntityType>
    </Schema>
  </edmx:DataServices>
</edmx:Edmx>

SQL: There's now a second CREATE VIEW DDL statement for the Authors entity in the service, also of course with the entity's name prefixed with the service name, i.e. Z_Authors:

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE VIEW Z_Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;

CREATE VIEW Z_Authors AS SELECT
  Authors_0.ID,
  Authors_0.name
FROM bookshop_Authors AS Authors_0;

SERVER: There's also now an Authors service endpoint shown at http://localhost:4004, i.e. http://localhost:4004/z/Authors, with this data:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë"
    },
    {
      "ID": 107,
      "name": "Charlotte Brontë"
    },
    {
      "ID": 150,
      "name": "Edgar Allen Poe"
    },
    {
      "ID": 170,
      "name": "Richard Carpenter"
    }
  ]
}

By the way, both the Books and Authors entitysets appear listed in the OData service document (at http://localhost:4004/z) now too:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata",
  "@odata.metadataEtag": "W/\"PI1HkKOvlJRM4cAkVt1IKmiUUdFecs6vCT4ciEv/l5U=\"",
  "value": [
    {
      "name": "Books",
      "url": "Books"
    },
    {
      "name": "Authors",
      "url": "Authors"
    }
  ]
}

07 Add a basic relationship with a to-one managed association, at the persistence layer

Branch: 07-add-a-basic-relationship-with-a-to-one-managed-association.

👉 In db/schema.cds, add an author element (note the singular element name, not authors plural) to the Books entity. This is a managed association, specifically a (one-) to-one association. The resulting contents of db/schema.cds should look like this:

namespace bookshop;

entity Books {
  key ID : Integer;
  title  : String;
  author : Association to Authors;
}
entity Authors {
  key ID : Integer;
  name   : String;
}

Notes

EDMX: Suddenly we can see relationships expressed in the OData entity data model. A NavigationPropertyBinding element appears within the EntitySet for Books, pointing to the EntitySet for Authors.

Additionally, the Books EntityType gets a new Property which is author_ID, and also gets a NavigationProperty which has a ReferentialConstraint based on that property. Note that there's no change to the Authors EntityType definition at this point:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<edmx:Edmx Version="4.0" xmlns:edmx="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edmx">
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://sap.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Common.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Common" Namespace="com.sap.vocabularies.Common.v1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://oasis-tcs.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Org.OData.Core.V1.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Core" Namespace="Org.OData.Core.V1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:DataServices>
    <Schema Namespace="Z" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">
      <EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer">
        <EntitySet Name="Books" EntityType="Z.Books">
          <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="author" Target="Authors"/>
        </EntitySet>
        <EntitySet Name="Authors" EntityType="Z.Authors"/>
      </EntityContainer>
      <EntityType Name="Books">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="title" Type="Edm.String"/>
        <NavigationProperty Name="author" Type="Z.Authors">
          <ReferentialConstraint Property="author_ID" ReferencedProperty="ID"/>
        </NavigationProperty>
        <Property Name="author_ID" Type="Edm.Int32"/>
      </EntityType>
      <EntityType Name="Authors">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
      </EntityType>
    </Schema>
  </edmx:DataServices>
</edmx:Edmx>

(See the OData documentation on NavigationPropertyBinding for more information.)

SQL: A new element author_ID appears in the DDL statement for creating the bookshop_Books table, and is referenced in the DDL statement for creating the Z_Books view too:

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  author_ID INTEGER,
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE VIEW Z_Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title,
  Books_0.author_ID
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;

CREATE VIEW Z_Authors AS SELECT
  Authors_0.ID,
  Authors_0.name
FROM bookshop_Authors AS Authors_0;

This author_ID element is created automatically by CAP; this is a small part of what managed associations are all about, abstracting the underlying persistence layer and doing the "foreign key thinking" for you.

SERVER: Nothing visibly changes at the service endpoint level, but the records (entities) in the Books entityset (http://localhost:4004/z/Books) now contain the new author_ID field. Don't get too excited yet, because right now the values are all null of course:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Books",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 201,
      "title": "Wuthering Heights",
      "author_ID": null
    },
    {
      "ID": 207,
      "title": "Jane Eyre",
      "author_ID": null
    },
    {
      "ID": 251,
      "title": "The Raven",
      "author_ID": null
    },
    {
      "ID": 252,
      "title": "Eleonora",
      "author_ID": null
    },
    {
      "ID": 271,
      "title": "Catweazle",
      "author_ID": null
    }
  ]
}

This suggests we need to add a new field to the db/data/bookshop-Books.csv file, with some corresponding data.

08 Add the author_ID field to the Books CSV data

Branch: 08-add-the-author_id-field-to-the-books-csv-data.

👉 Open up yet another terminal, and use the script ./utils/csvgetdata to retrieve the Books CSV (from the CSV data files in the SAP-samples/cloud-cap-samples repo) like this:

./utils/csvgetdata Books ID,title,author_ID

This should produce something like this:

ID,title,author_ID
201,Wuthering Heights,101
207,Jane Eyre,107
251,The Raven,150
252,Eleonora,150
271,Catweazle,170

👉 Run this again, but this time redirect the output to the db/data/bookshop-Books.csv file:

./utils/csvgetdata Books ID,title,author_ID > db/data/bookshop-Books.csv

Now we have the values for author_ID in the Books data.

You might want to leave this terminal around as you'll be running another script later on.

Notes

EDMX: No change.

SQL: No change.

SERVER: The CAP server restarts, and now the Books entityset's records (at http://localhost:4004/z/Books) have values in the author_ID field:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Books",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 201,
      "title": "Wuthering Heights",
      "author_ID": 101
    },
    {
      "ID": 207,
      "title": "Jane Eyre",
      "author_ID": 107
    },
    {
      "ID": 251,
      "title": "The Raven",
      "author_ID": 150
    },
    {
      "ID": 252,
      "title": "Eleonora",
      "author_ID": 150
    },
    {
      "ID": 271,
      "title": "Catweazle",
      "author_ID": 170
    }
  ]
}

This is enough to satisfy and support the basic relationship we have now between Books and Authors, which in turn means we can use OData's $expand system query option when requesting the Books entityset, to follow the author navigation property, i.e. http://localhost:4004/z/Books?$expand=author.

The resulting resource (as usual, with OData V4, in a JSON representation), is where we can see the (one-) to-one relationship and where -- right now -- a book can have one and only one author:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Books(author())",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 201,
      "title": "Wuthering Heights",
      "author_ID": 101,
      "author": {
        "ID": 101,
        "name": "Emily Brontë"
      }
    },
    {
      "ID": 207,
      "title": "Jane Eyre",
      "author_ID": 107,
      "author": {
        "ID": 107,
        "name": "Charlotte Brontë"
      }
    },
    {
      "ID": 251,
      "title": "The Raven",
      "author_ID": 150,
      "author": {
        "ID": 150,
        "name": "Edgar Allen Poe"
      }
    },
    {
      "ID": 252,
      "title": "Eleonora",
      "author_ID": 150,
      "author": {
        "ID": 150,
        "name": "Edgar Allen Poe"
      }
    },
    {
      "ID": 271,
      "title": "Catweazle",
      "author_ID": 170,
      "author": {
        "ID": 170,
        "name": "Richard Carpenter"
      }
    }
  ]
}

Important: There is no change to the Authors entityset, and we cannot go the other way, i.e. we can not go from author to book. There is no navigation property available for that, as we can of course see from the definition of the Authors EntityType in the metadata document at http://localhost:4004/z/$metadata:

<EntityType Name="Authors">
  <Key>
    <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
  </Key>
  <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
  <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
</EntityType>

In fact, if we were to attempt to invent or guess at such a property and use it, in a call such as http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=book or http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books then we'd get an error, of course:

<error xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/metadata">
  <code>400</code>
  <message>Navigation property 'books' is not defined in type 'Z.Authors'</message>
</error>

But even this error teaches us something, or at least suggests something that is quite likely: that $expand needs a NavigationProperty to work. Errors are our friends!

You may have noticed that the value of the author ID appeared twice in the JSON response, once as the value of the author_ID foreign key field created and handled by the managed association, and again as the value of the ID key field of the expanded entity. Here's an example where the author ID value 101 appears twice:
{
  "ID": 201,
  "title": "Wuthering Heights",
  "author_ID": 101,
  "author": {
    "ID": 101,
    "name": "Emily Brontë"
  }
}
Key fields are automatically emitted in the entities, but we can indirectly omit the author_ID field from the Books entity by adding a $select query option like this: http://localhost:4004/z/Books?$expand=author&$select=title&$top=1 (just selecting the first entity to keep things short):
{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Books(title,ID,author())",
  "value": [
    {
      "title": "Wuthering Heights",
      "ID": 201,
      "author": {
        "ID": 101,
        "name": "Emily Brontë"
      }
    }
  ]
}

09 Move the current to-one managed association from the persistence layer to the service layer

Branch: 09-move-the-current-to-one-managed-association-from-the-persistence-layer-to-the-service-layer.

Rather than continue to work at the db/schema.cds level, let's move our relationship enhancements up a layer, to the service layer, and store them in an "extension" file.

👉 First, create a new, empty file srv/extend.cds.

👉 Next, restart the two monitoring scripts ./utils/monedmx and ./utils/monsql. This is because they are based on entr which monitors changes to files, but not creation of new files, so the creation and subsequent editing of the new srv/extend.cds here wouldn't cause the EDMX and SQL output to be refreshed.

👉 Once you've restarted the EDMX and SQL monitors, carry out the following changes:

Remove the author element from the Books entity in db/schema.cds, so the entity definition goes back to looking like this:
```
entity Books {
  key ID : Integer;
  title  : String;
}
```
Add the element back in, but this time as part of the following in the new srv/extend.cds :
```
using bookshop from '../db/schema';

extend bookshop.Books with {
  author: Association to bookshop.Authors;
}
```
Note that the association target must now be specified with the namespace prefix, as bookshop.Authors, and not just Authors.

👉 Save the changes to both files, ideally at the same time.

Notes

EDMX: No change.

SQL: No change.

SERVER: When the empty file srv/extend.cds is first created, the server restarts, and this new file is included when loading the model:

[cds] - loaded model from 3 file(s):

  db/schema.cds
  srv/extend.cds
  srv/main.cds

Beyond this minor change to the CAP server log output, there is no effective difference to the service, or the data available. We've just moved the definition of the (one-) to-one managed association to a separate file at the service layer, nothing more.

If you want to learn more about how to integrate and mash up services and definitions, you may wish to attend (or host) the Service integration with SAP Cloud Application Programming Model SAP CodeJam - find out more at So, You Want to Host a CodeJam! Everything you need to know.

Incidentally, if you didn't manage to save both files at the same time, that's fine, it's just that you will have encountered one of two possible errors (both temporary) in the CAP server log output, depending on which file you saved first. Then again, errors are great, because we learn from them, so let's embrace them! Here are the possible errors you may have encountered:

If you saved the removal of the author: Association to Authors; line in the db/schema.cds file first, you may have seen the following error, because you'd removed the managed association, which had been responsible for the creation of the author_ID element (to act as a foreign key), and which would have therefore been removed, causing a CSV import error thus:
```
[ERROR] SQLITE_ERROR: table bookshop_Books has no column named author_ID in:
INSERT INTO bookshop_Books ( ID, title, author_ID ) VALUES ( ?, ?, ? )
```
If you saved the contents of the new srv/extend.cds first, then you would have of course effectively defined an author element a second time on the same entity (Books, in the bookshop namespace), and would have caused the following error:
```
[ERROR] srv/extend.cds:4:3-9: Duplicate definition of element “author” (in entity:“bookshop.Books”/element:“author”)
```

10 Add a reverse to-many managed association from Authors to Books

Branch: 10-add-a-reverse-to-many-managed-association-from-authors-to-books.

So far we can go from a book to the author of that book. So that we can also go from an author to the book(s) they wrote, we need to add a reverse association. Again, a managed association, but this time not a to-one but a to-many managed association.

👉 In the srv/extend.cds file, add another extend stanza so the entire contents look like this (do not specify any on condition at this point):

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

extend bookshop.Books with {
  author: Association to bookshop.Authors;
}

extend bookshop.Authors with {
  books: Association to many bookshop.Books;
}

Notes

If you don't see the warnings described as follows, simply restart the ./utils/monedmx and ./utils/monsql scripts as described in the previous step.

EDMX: There are warnings when generating the EDMX, as follows:

[WARNING] srv/extend.cds:8:3: An association can't have cardinality "to many" without an ON-condition (in entity:“bookshop.Authors”/element:“books”)
[WARNING] srv/main.cds:5:10: An association can't have cardinality "to many" without an ON-condition (in entity:“Z.Authors”/element:“books”)

See the (One-)To-Many Associations section of Capire for details. Both warnings relate to the same issue (the Association to many bookshop.Books), just from two different perspectives:

in the srv/extend.cds file
in the srv/main.cds file

Despite these warnings, there have, though, been some additions to the metadata.

In the EntityContainer area, the Authors EntitySet now has a NavigationPropertyBinding pointing to the Books EntitySet. So instead of just:

<EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer">
  <EntitySet Name="Books" EntityType="Z.Books">
    <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="author" Target="Authors"/>
  </EntitySet>
  <EntitySet Name="Authors" EntityType="Z.Authors"/>
</EntityContainer>

we now see:

<EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer">
  <EntitySet Name="Books" EntityType="Z.Books">
    <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="author" Target="Authors"/>
  </EntitySet>
  <EntitySet Name="Authors" EntityType="Z.Authors">
    <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="books" Target="Books"/>
  </EntitySet>
</EntityContainer>

In the list of EntityTypes, there are some additions in the the Authors EntityType:

<EntityType Name="Authors">
  <Key>
    <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
  </Key>
  <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
  <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
  <NavigationProperty Name="books" Type="Collection(Z.Books)"/>
  <Property Name="books_ID" Type="Edm.Int32"/>
</EntityType>

First, the Authors EntityType now has a NavigationProperty, about which there are two things to notice:

The type is specified as Collection(Z.Books), because it's for this to-many association (i.e. the relationship is from a single thing to a collection of things)
While there is a ReferentialConstraint defined for the already-existing to-one association from earlier (for Books.author):
```
<NavigationProperty Name="author" Type="Z.Authors">
  <ReferentialConstraint Property="author_ID" ReferencedProperty="ID"/>
</NavigationProperty>
```
there is no ReferentialConstraint for this new to-many association.

Second, there is also an additional Property for the books_ID element that was created as a result of this new managed to-many association:

<Property Name="books_ID" Type="Edm.Int32"/>

Does this look right to you? Hold that thought.

SQL: The same warnings appear as did for the EDMX (and for the same reason, of course):

[WARNING] srv/extend.cds:8:3: An association can't have cardinality "to many" without an ON-condition (in entity:“bookshop.Authors”/element:“books”)
[WARNING] srv/main.cds:5:10: An association can't have cardinality "to many" without an ON-condition (in entity:“Z.Authors”/element:“books”)

The DDL statements in the SQL now also have a new element books_ID both in the CREATE_TABLE statement for the bookshop_Authors table and for the Z_Authors view too:

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  author_ID INTEGER,
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  books_ID INTEGER,
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE VIEW Z_Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title,
  Books_0.author_ID
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;

CREATE VIEW Z_Authors AS SELECT
  Authors_0.ID,
  Authors_0.name,
  Authors_0.books_ID
FROM bookshop_Authors AS Authors_0;

Again, how do you think this additional books_ID element might work to bring about a (one-) to-many association from authors to books?

SERVER: The Authors entityset records at http://localhost:4004/z/Authors now show that new books_ID element, and the value for each one is null:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë",
      "books_ID": null
    },
    {
      "ID": 107,
      "name": "Charlotte Brontë",
      "books_ID": null
    },
    {
      "ID": 150,
      "name": "Edgar Allen Poe",
      "books_ID": null
    },
    {
      "ID": 170,
      "name": "Richard Carpenter",
      "books_ID": null
    }
  ]
}

Basically, as it stands, this to-many managed association isn't quite right. Given that there's only a single scalar value that can be specified for books_ID, how on earth could we relate an author to more than one book?

While we can logically see that this is not going to work, let's find out what happens if we try to actually use this new NavigationProperty that we have at the moment, i.e. this one:

<NavigationProperty Name="books" Type="Collection(Z.Books)"/>

We know that to follow such properties we can use the OData system query option $expand.

👉 So try this: http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books.

What we get is perhaps a little unexpected, but not an overall surprise (some whitespace has been added for better readability here):

<error xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/metadata">
  <code>500</code>
  <message>SQLITE_ERROR: near ")": syntax error in: SELECT b.ID AS "b_ID", b.title
  AS "b_title", b.author_ID AS "b_author_ID", filterExpand.ID AS "filterExpand_ID"
  FROM Z_Books b INNER JOIN (SELECT DISTINCT ID FROM (SELECT a.ID AS ID FROM
  Z_Authors a ORDER BY a.ID COLLATE NOCASE ASC LIMIT 1000)) filterExpand ON ( )
  </message>
</error>

It stands to reason that this SQL expression that was constructed here to go from authors to books needs something for the ON (...) part of the filter expansion (right at the end of the expression). Are you wondering what might go in there? How could we find out?

Well, we could turn on debug output with the CAP server, via the Minimalistic Logging Facade, specifically with the DEBUG environment variable, and then make a similar OData query operation but going the other way, where we know the relationship described by the NavigationProperty there is correct, i.e. includes a ReferentialConstraint:

<NavigationProperty Name="author" Type="Z.Authors">
  <ReferentialConstraint Property="author_ID" ReferencedProperty="ID"/>
</NavigationProperty>

👉 Stop the CAP server with Ctrl-C, and restart it, specifying the value sql for the DEBUG environment variable on the same line, like this:

DEBUG=sql cds watch

Immediately, in addition to all the normal log output, we also see this:

[sqlite] - BEGIN
[sqlite] - DROP table if exists cds_Model;
[sqlite] - COMMIT
[sqlite] - BEGIN
[sqlite] - SELECT 1 from sqlite_master where name='cds_xt_Extensions' {}
[sqlite] - DROP VIEW IF EXISTS Z_Authors
[sqlite] - DROP VIEW IF EXISTS Z_Books
[sqlite] - DROP TABLE IF EXISTS bookshop_Authors
[sqlite] - DROP TABLE IF EXISTS bookshop_Books
[sqlite] - CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  author_ID INTEGER,
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);
[sqlite] - CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  books_ID INTEGER,
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);
[sqlite] - CREATE VIEW Z_Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title,
  Books_0.author_ID
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;
[sqlite] - CREATE VIEW Z_Authors AS SELECT
  Authors_0.ID,
  Authors_0.name,
  Authors_0.books_ID
FROM bookshop_Authors AS Authors_0;
[sqlite] - COMMIT
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv
[sqlite] - BEGIN
[sqlite] - INSERT INTO bookshop_Authors ( ID, name ) VALUES ( ?, ? ) [
  [ '101', 'Emily Brontë' ],
  [ '107', 'Charlotte Brontë' ],
  [ '150', 'Edgar Allen Poe' ],
  [ '170', 'Richard Carpenter' ]
]
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Books.csv
[sqlite] - INSERT INTO bookshop_Books ( ID, title, author_ID ) VALUES ( ?, ?, ? ) [
  [ '201', 'Wuthering Heights', '101' ],
  [ '207', 'Jane Eyre', '107' ],
  [ '251', 'The Raven', '150' ],
  [ '252', 'Eleonora', '150' ],
  [ '271', 'Catweazle', '170' ]
]
[sqlite] - COMMIT

👉 Now request the resource at http://localhost:4004/z/Books?$expand=author, and observe the log output, which should show something like this (again, whitespace has been added here):

[sqlite] - SELECT a.ID AS "a_ID", a.title AS "a_title", a.author_ID
AS "a_author_ID", b.ID AS "b_ID", b.name AS "b_name", b.books_ID
AS "b_books_ID" FROM Z_Books a LEFT JOIN Z_Authors b
ON ( b.ID = a.author_ID )
ORDER BY a.ID COLLATE NOCASE ASC LIMIT 1000 []

We can see from this successful call that follows the relationship from books to authors that the content of the ON (...) is:

b.ID = a.author_ID

The a and b don't refer to "authors" and "books" here; in fact, it's the reverse. It's just coincidence that our two entities begin with the first two letters of the alphabet. Observe how these letters are used as short codes for the tables in the SQL expression, starting with a and incrementing: ... FROM Z_Books as a LEFT JOIN Z_Authors b ....

This is pretty much what we'd expect, i.e. the constraint in action. We don't have a constraint in the ON (...) part of the SQL expression generated for http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books because the managed association declaration is incomplete.

👉 Before continuing, restart the CAP server again, this time without the DEBUG=sql, i.e. back to normal:

cds watch

11 Fix the to-many managed association

Branch: 11-fix-the-to-many-managed-association.

The to-many managed association won't work for what we want, we can't relate an author to more than one book. The association is only half-baked at this point anyway, as we can see from the warnings that are emitted, and the error that occurs when we try to use it.

Let's address that now, by adding the on condition mentioned in both the warning and in the error.

👉 Modify the to-many association in the srv/extend.cds so it looks like this:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

extend bookshop.Books with {
  author: Association to bookshop.Authors;
}

extend bookshop.Authors with {
  books: Association to many bookshop.Books on books.author = $self;
}

Notes

EDMX: The warnings have now gone. There are no further changes to the details of the Authors EntitySet, it is as it was before we added the on condition:

<EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer">
  <EntitySet Name="Books" EntityType="Z.Books">
    <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="author" Target="Authors"/>
  </EntitySet>
  <EntitySet Name="Authors" EntityType="Z.Authors">
    <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="books" Target="Books"/>
  </EntitySet>
</EntityContainer>

However, both the Books and Authors EntityTypes have changed.

The Books EntityType, i.e. the target of this (one-) to-many managed association, now has a new attribute Partner="books" in its existing NavigationProperty:

<EntityType Name="Books">
  <Key>
    <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
  </Key>
  <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
  <Property Name="title" Type="Edm.String"/>
  <NavigationProperty Name="author" Type="Z.Authors" Partner="books">
    <ReferentialConstraint Property="author_ID" ReferencedProperty="ID"/>
  </NavigationProperty>
  <Property Name="author_ID" Type="Edm.Int32"/>
</EntityType>

The Authors EntityType also has a similar but opposite attribute in its existing NavigationProperty, i.e. Partner="author":

<EntityType Name="Authors">
  <Key>
    <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
  </Key>
  <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
  <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
  <NavigationProperty Name="books" Type="Collection(Z.Books)" Partner="author"/>
</EntityType>

But more crucially, this property:

<Property Name="books_ID" Type="Edm.Int32"/>

has now disappeared again. This makes sense, in that it absolutely didn't make sense to have a book_ID property to link an author to potentially multiple books.

SQL: Correspondingly, the book_ID element has now disappeared again from both the authors table and view DDL statements:

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  author_ID INTEGER,
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE VIEW Z_Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title,
  Books_0.author_ID
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;

CREATE VIEW Z_Authors AS SELECT
  Authors_0.ID,
  Authors_0.name
FROM bookshop_Authors AS Authors_0;

The warnings have also gone from here too.

SERVER: No change.

12 Attempt to follow the to-many managed association from author to books

Branch: 12-attempt-to-follow-the-to-many-managed-association-from-author-to-books.

The managed association is set up, and appears correct. What about the data? Do we have enough information to go from an author to the one or more books they wrote?

The data we have at the persistence layer, in the form of the CSV files, looks like this, for db/data/bookshop-Books.csv:

ID,title,author_ID
201,Wuthering Heights,101
207,Jane Eyre,107
251,The Raven,150
252,Eleonora,150
271,Catweazle,170

and for db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv:

ID,name
101,Emily Brontë
107,Charlotte Brontë
150,Edgar Allen Poe
170,Richard Carpenter

Note that there is no field in this authors data that explicitly points to book identifier(s). The relationships are maintained in the books data, simply in the author_ID field.

👉 First, make a simple OData query operation to retrieve the Authors entityset http://localhost:4004/z/Authors:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë"
    },
    {
      "ID": 107,
      "name": "Charlotte Brontë"
    },
    {
      "ID": 150,
      "name": "Edgar Allen Poe"
    },
    {
      "ID": 170,
      "name": "Richard Carpenter"
    }
  ]
}

This reflects exactly the fields and data within the db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv file. There's no book_ID any more.

👉 Now use the $expand system query option to follow the navigation property (this one: <NavigationProperty Name="books" Type="Collection(Z.Books)" Partner="author"/>) http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books - this should return something like this:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors(books())",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë",
      "books": [
        {
          "ID": 201,
          "title": "Wuthering Heights",
          "author_ID": 101
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 107,
      "name": "Charlotte Brontë",
      "books": [
        {
          "ID": 207,
          "title": "Jane Eyre",
          "author_ID": 107
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 150,
      "name": "Edgar Allen Poe",
      "books": [
        {
          "ID": 251,
          "title": "The Raven",
          "author_ID": 150
        },
        {
          "ID": 252,
          "title": "Eleonora",
          "author_ID": 150
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 170,
      "name": "Richard Carpenter",
      "books": [
        {
          "ID": 271,
          "title": "Catweazle",
          "author_ID": 170
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Great!

Of course, this is a fully functional navigation property so we can use more involved OData query operations.

👉 Try these (somewhat contrived) examples:

Listing all authors, showing any of their books that have titles that contain "the" http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books($filter=contains(title,'the'))
Listing all authors, showing their books but just the title information http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books($select=title)
Authors that have written more than one book http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$filter=books/$count gt 1
Authors that have written more than one book, listing what they wrote http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$filter=books/$count gt 1&$expand=books($select=title)

And just a final (and slightly extreme) example of multiple nested expands http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$filter=books/$count gt 1&$expand=books($expand=author($expand=books($expand=author))) which returns this:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors(books(author(books(author()))))",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 150,
      "name": "Edgar Allen Poe",
      "books": [
        {
          "ID": 251,
          "title": "The Raven",
          "author_ID": 150,
          "author": {
            "ID": 150,
            "name": "Edgar Allen Poe",
            "books": [
              {
                "ID": 251,
                "title": "The Raven",
                "author_ID": 150,
                "author": {
                  "ID": 150,
                  "name": "Edgar Allen Poe"
                }
              },
              {
                "ID": 252,
                "title": "Eleonora",
                "author_ID": 150,
                "author": {
                  "ID": 150,
                  "name": "Edgar Allen Poe"
                }
              }
            ]
          }
        },
        {
          "ID": 252,
          "title": "Eleonora",
          "author_ID": 150,
          "author": {
            "ID": 150,
            "name": "Edgar Allen Poe",
            "books": [
              {
                "ID": 251,
                "title": "The Raven",
                "author_ID": 150,
                "author": {
                  "ID": 150,
                  "name": "Edgar Allen Poe"
                }
              },
              {
                "ID": 252,
                "title": "Eleonora",
                "author_ID": 150,
                "author": {
                  "ID": 150,
                  "name": "Edgar Allen Poe"
                }
              }
            ]
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

See Back to basics: OData - the Open Data Protocol - Part 4 - All things $filter and the accompanying All things $filter document for more details.

So everything seems to work as intended, a (one-) to-one managed association from Books to Authors, and a (one-) to-many managed association from Authors to Books, effectively providing a reverse route.

13 Create a link entity as the basis for a many-to-many relationship

Branch: 13-create-a-link-entity-as-the-basis-for-a-many-to-many-relationship.

Let's now move on from (one-) to-one and (one-) to-many relationships ... to a many-to-many relationship.

While CDS doesn't currently directly support many-to-many relationships (see Many-to-Many Associations), they can be achieved by using a so-called "link entity" to bind two (one) to-many managed associations together.

👉 In the srv/extend.cds file, add a new entity Books_Authors so that the contents look as follows:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

extend bookshop.Books with {
  author: Association to bookshop.Authors;
}

extend bookshop.Authors with {
  books: Association to many bookshop.Books on books.author = $self;
}

entity Books_Authors {
  book: Association to bookshop.Books;
  author: Association to bookshop.Authors;
}

Notes

EDMX: No change (because while there's a new entity, it's not exposed in the service definition (in srv/main.cds).

SQL: A new table definition is added for this link entity, the DDL looks like this:

CREATE TABLE Books_Authors (
  book_ID INTEGER,
  author_ID INTEGER
);

SERVER: No change.

14 Relate each of the Books and Authors entities to the new link entity

Branch: 14-relate-each-of-the-books-and-authors-entities-to-the-new-link-entity.

Think of the link entity as a central "plumbing" facility, that just has a list of (in this case) pairs of numeric author and book IDs, linking authors and books. Then, from either side, we need to link the Books entity and Authors entity to that central plumbing facility, i.e. the link entity.

Right now, the relationships defined in srv/extend.cds, going from bookshop.Books and going from bookshop.Authors, go to each other. In other words, these are the two managed association definitions (see just earlier for the entire contents):

Here's the current (one-) to-one managed association:

extend bookshop.Books with {
  author: Association to bookshop.Authors;
}

And here's the current (one-) to-many managed association:

extend bookshop.Authors with {
  books: Association to many bookshop.Books on books.author = $self;
}

This current setup affords us a relationship between books and authors such that a book can point to only one author, but an author can point to more than one book.

Now we need to make a change so that they no longer point to each other, but instead point to the corresponding elements in the new link entity Books_Authors.

👉 Modify the srv/extend.cds so the entire contents look like this:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

extend bookshop.Books with {
  authors: Association to many Books_Authors on authors.book = $self;
}

extend bookshop.Authors with {
  books: Association to many Books_Authors on books.author = $self;
}

entity Books_Authors {
  book: Association to bookshop.Books;
  author: Association to bookshop.Authors;
}

Observe that each one of the element names is plural, matching the "many" keyword in each managed association. Changing to this setup affords us a different relationship between books and authors. Now, a book can point to more than one author, as well as an author being able to point to more than one book.

It's at this point worth mentioning the way I remember how the on conditions are specified, as the examples here are clean and clear to use in an explanation. In the first example here (authors: Association to many Books_Authors on authors.book = $self) the left hand side of the condition, authors.book is constructed from the name of the element we're defining (authors), and the name of the element in the target entity that describes the reverse relationship (i.e. book), making authors.book. Similarly for books.author in the second example.

This modification causes quite a bit of a change, including warnings!

Notes

EDMX: A warning is emitted thus:

[WARNING] srv/main.cds:4:10: No OData navigation property generated, target “Books_Authors” is outside of service “Z” (in entity:“Z.Books”/element:“authors”)
[WARNING] srv/main.cds:5:10: No OData navigation property generated, target “Books_Authors” is outside of service “Z” (in entity:“Z.Authors”/element:“books”)

The message is fairly clear, although it's best to read this one from back to front to properly understand it.

What it's saying is that because Books_Authors is not included in the Z service definition (which is true, we haven't added anything inside the service Z { ... } to include it yet) a navigation property binding at the OData level cannot be generated. This is because there isn't anywhere for it to point - there is no target entity type for this link entity, and consequently no entityset either as a target for the navigation.

As a result of this omission, all relationships (in the form of navigation properties) have disappeared, and we're back to almost where we started, with just simple properties for the book IDs and titles, and the author IDs and names:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<edmx:Edmx Version="4.0" xmlns:edmx="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edmx">
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://sap.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Common.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Common" Namespace="com.sap.vocabularies.Common.v1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://oasis-tcs.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Org.OData.Core.V1.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Core" Namespace="Org.OData.Core.V1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:DataServices>
    <Schema Namespace="Z" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">
      <EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer">
        <EntitySet Name="Books" EntityType="Z.Books"/>
        <EntitySet Name="Authors" EntityType="Z.Authors"/>
      </EntityContainer>
      <EntityType Name="Books">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="title" Type="Edm.String"/>
      </EntityType>
      <EntityType Name="Authors">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
      </EntityType>
    </Schema>
  </edmx:DataServices>
</edmx:Edmx>

This is of course just a temporary state, we're not done yet.

SQL: There have been corresponding changes at the SQL level too, albeit a little less extreme but with just as much impact. The author_ID field has been removed. This makes sense, as it was only introduced because of the (one-) to-one managed association from Books to Authors, and this has now been replaced. This is what the SQL looks like at this point:

CREATE TABLE Books_Authors (
  book_ID INTEGER,
  author_ID INTEGER
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE VIEW Z_Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;

CREATE VIEW Z_Authors AS SELECT
  Authors_0.ID,
  Authors_0.name
FROM bookshop_Authors AS Authors_0;

The only place where we see any sort of "generated" _ID fields (as a result of managed associations) is in the DDL definition for the link entity table Books_Authors. But that right now is pretty much an island doing nothing and connected to nothing.

SERVER: We see an error emitted:

[cds] - connect to db > sqlite { database: ':memory:' }
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Books.csv
[ERROR] SQLITE_ERROR: table bookshop_Books has no column named author_ID in:
INSERT INTO bookshop_Books ( ID, title, author_ID ) VALUES ( ?, ?, ? )

This makes sense, as there is no longer any author_ID. So before moving on to the next step, let's get rid of that from the CSV file db/data/bookshop-Books.csv.

And that's not wasted effort that we'll have to shortly undo, because when we do want to rebuild that relationship (between books and authors), we won't be doing it in the db/data/bookshop-Books.csv file, we'll be doing it in a new CSV file that will correspond to the link entity.

To get rid of the author_ID field from the CSV file, you can use the csvdelfield script in the utils/ directory. This is perhaps a little overkill for a CSV file with only a handful of records, but it could be useful for larger files, or files where you want to remove a field that is in the middle and difficult to edit out manually.

👉 At a terminal prompt (for example the one you used earlier for the ./utils/csvgetdata script), try it out, specifying the name of the CSV file, like this:

./utils/csvdelfield db/data/bookshop-Books.csv

It should show a list of current CSV fields in the file, like this:

ID,title,author_ID

👉 Now re-run it, this time specifying the author_ID field that we want to delete. WARNING: this will actually modify the CSV file contents directly:

./utils/csvdelfield db/data/bookshop-Books.csv author_ID

As well as modifying the CSV file, it will also output the new content directly:

ID,title
201,Wuthering Heights
207,Jane Eyre
251,The Raven
252,Eleonora
271,Catweazle

Because of this change to the CSV file, the CAP server will restart (as we're still running cds watch) and reload the CSV files, and this time there is no error:

[cds] - connect to db > sqlite { database: ':memory:' }
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Books.csv
/> successfully deployed to sqlite in-memory db

15 Add the link entity to the service

We need to address the fact that we cannot navigate at all between the Books and Authors entities. We know why that is, from the warning in the previous step, which told us that no navigation properties were generated. The warning also told us why - we don't have the link entity in the service, so it was effectively "not available" for the relationship definitions.

Let's fix that now. We could simply add it as a third item inside the service definition in the srv/main.cds file, which currently looks like this:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';

service Z {
  entity Books as projection on bookshop.Books;
  entity Authors as projection on bookshop.Authors;
}

But with our srv/extend.cds file, we're already thinking philosophically about treading lightly upon entity and service definitions that already exist, and instead extending and modifying them from elsewhere.

In this file, we've already used the extend keyword to add elements to existing entities (adding authors to bookshop.Books, and books to bookshop.Authors). So let's continue on that path and add a further extend keyword, but this time not for an entity, but for a service. Our Z service.

In order to successfully reference that Z service, which is defined in srv/main.cds, we need to bring the definition in.

👉 So, in srv/extend.cds:

add a using line to bring in the definitions in srv/main.cds
add an extend service clause to add the link entity to the Z service

The contents should end up looking like this:

using bookshop from '../db/schema';
using from './main';

extend bookshop.Books with {
  authors: Association to many Books_Authors on authors.book = $self;
}

extend bookshop.Authors with {
  books: Association to many Books_Authors on books.author = $self;
}

entity Books_Authors {
  book: Association to bookshop.Books;
  author: Association to bookshop.Authors;
}

extend service Z with {
  entity LinkEntity as projection on Books_Authors;
}

That's all we need to do here.

Notes

EDMX: The warnings about no navigation properties being generated now have disappeared. There is, though, a new warning that appears:

[WARNING] srv/extend.cds:18:10: Expected entity to have a primary key (in entity:“Z.LinkEntity”)

This is fine, we're not wanting to use this link entity as a "normal" entity, so we can ignore this warning.

More interestingly, relationships are back in the EDMX, and they're back with a vengeance!

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<edmx:Edmx Version="4.0" xmlns:edmx="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edmx">
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://sap.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Common.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Common" Namespace="com.sap.vocabularies.Common.v1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:Reference Uri="https://oasis-tcs.github.io/odata-vocabularies/vocabularies/Org.OData.Core.V1.xml">
    <edmx:Include Alias="Core" Namespace="Org.OData.Core.V1"/>
  </edmx:Reference>
  <edmx:DataServices>
    <Schema Namespace="Z" xmlns="http://docs.oasis-open.org/odata/ns/edm">
      <EntityContainer Name="EntityContainer">
        <EntitySet Name="LinkEntity" EntityType="Z.LinkEntity">
          <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="book" Target="Books"/>
          <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="author" Target="Authors"/>
        </EntitySet>
        <EntitySet Name="Books" EntityType="Z.Books">
          <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="authors" Target="LinkEntity"/>
        </EntitySet>
        <EntitySet Name="Authors" EntityType="Z.Authors">
          <NavigationPropertyBinding Path="books" Target="LinkEntity"/>
        </EntitySet>
      </EntityContainer>
      <EntityType Name="LinkEntity">
        <NavigationProperty Name="book" Type="Z.Books" Partner="authors">
          <ReferentialConstraint Property="book_ID" ReferencedProperty="ID"/>
        </NavigationProperty>
        <Property Name="book_ID" Type="Edm.Int32"/>
        <NavigationProperty Name="author" Type="Z.Authors" Partner="books">
          <ReferentialConstraint Property="author_ID" ReferencedProperty="ID"/>
        </NavigationProperty>
        <Property Name="author_ID" Type="Edm.Int32"/>
      </EntityType>
      <EntityType Name="Books">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="title" Type="Edm.String"/>
        <NavigationProperty Name="authors" Type="Collection(Z.LinkEntity)" Partner="book"/>
      </EntityType>
      <EntityType Name="Authors">
        <Key>
          <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
        </Key>
        <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
        <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
        <NavigationProperty Name="books" Type="Collection(Z.LinkEntity)" Partner="author"/>
      </EntityType>
    </Schema>
  </edmx:DataServices>
</edmx:Edmx>

Here's a few pointers that will help you stare at the XML and take it all in.

Taking the EntityTypes first:

There's now a new EntityType for the LinkEntity. This consists purely of a couple of NavigationProperty elements each paired with a sibling Property element for the _ID style field generated through the managed association definition.
Each of the Books and Authors EntityTypes now has a NavigationProperty that points to the LinkEntity, specifically in a collection (i.e. a to-many) context.

Now looking at the content of the EntityContainer:

Instead of just two simple EntitySets for Books and Authors that had no relation to each other (this is what we had in the previous step as a result of the failure to generate navigation properties), we now have a beautifully balanced relationship between those Books and Authors EntitySets, via a new, third EntitySet for our LinkEntity. This third EntitySet has NavigationPropertyBindings to each of Books and Authors targets.

SQL: While the change to the SQL is not as dramatic, it's still important to look at. What's different is that there's now a new DDL statement to create the view that corresponds to the link entity. The view is called Z_LinkEntity, i.e. with a Z prefix (remember that the LinkEntity entity lives in the Z service, just like the Books and Authors entities.

CREATE TABLE Books_Authors (
  book_ID INTEGER,
  author_ID INTEGER
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Books (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  title NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE TABLE bookshop_Authors (
  ID INTEGER NOT NULL,
  name NVARCHAR(5000),
  PRIMARY KEY(ID)
);

CREATE VIEW Z_LinkEntity AS SELECT
  Books_Authors_0.book_ID,
  Books_Authors_0.author_ID
FROM Books_Authors AS Books_Authors_0;

CREATE VIEW Z_Books AS SELECT
  Books_0.ID,
  Books_0.title
FROM bookshop_Books AS Books_0;

CREATE VIEW Z_Authors AS SELECT
  Authors_0.ID,
  Authors_0.name
FROM bookshop_Authors AS Authors_0;

SERVER: There is no discernible difference in the log output from the CAP server. But what we can see at http://localhost:4004 is that there's now a new, third service endpoint: http://localhost:4004/z/LinkEntity. The OData entityset resource at this endpoint is currently empty, as we can see from the JSON representation that is returned (we'll add data in the next step):

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#LinkEntity",
  "value": []
}

Not only that, but now that the relationships are back in the EDMX, we can follow the relationships from books to authors, and vice versa, by using the OData system query option $expand as normal:

For looking at authors of books with http://localhost:4004/z/Books?$expand=authors, we get:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Books(authors())",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 201,
      "title": "Wuthering Heights",
      "authors": []
    },
    {
      "ID": 207,
      "title": "Jane Eyre",
      "authors": []
    },
    {
      "ID": 251,
      "title": "The Raven",
      "authors": []
    },
    {
      "ID": 252,
      "title": "Eleonora",
      "authors": []
    },
    {
      "ID": 271,
      "title": "Catweazle",
      "authors": []
    }
  ]
}

For looking at books of authors with http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books, we get:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors(books())",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë",
      "books": []
    },
    {
      "ID": 107,
      "name": "Charlotte Brontë",
      "books": []
    },
    {
      "ID": 150,
      "name": "Edgar Allen Poe",
      "books": []
    },
    {
      "ID": 170,
      "name": "Richard Carpenter",
      "books": []
    }
  ]
}

There's no data in these followed navigation properties. That's because they both now point to the link entity. For example, here's the EntityType for Authors, where we can see that the books navigation property that we want to follow, via the $expand system query option, points to something of type Z.LinkEntity.

<EntityType Name="Authors">
  <Key>
    <PropertyRef Name="ID"/>
  </Key>
  <Property Name="ID" Type="Edm.Int32" Nullable="false"/>
  <Property Name="name" Type="Edm.String"/>
  <NavigationProperty Name="books" Type="Collection(Z.LinkEntity)" Partner="author"/>
</EntityType>

One other thing, before we continue. Did you notice that the "lack of data" here was expressed in terms of empty arrays? Let's focus on one specific author, and ask for the expansion of the books navigation property, with http://localhost:4004/z/Authors/101?$expand=books, to zoom in on this phenomenon. What we get in response is a single entity resource (i.e. we have carried out an OData READ operation this time, rather than a QUERY), again in a JSON representation that looks like this:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors(books())/$entity",
  "ID": 101,
  "name": "Emily Brontë",
  "books": []
}

The value of the books navigation property is []. This is a direct reflection on the combination of two things:

the fact that the type of this navigation property is a collection: Collection(Z.LinkEntity)
we have no CSV data to provide initial data for the link entity yet

Let's address that next.

16 Add data to the link entity to relate books and authors

Branch: 16-add-data-to-the-link-entity-to-relate-books-and-authors.

The Books_Authors link entity is represented at the persistence layer with a simple table which we know is defined like this:

CREATE TABLE Books_Authors (
  book_ID INTEGER,
  author_ID INTEGER
);

So we can now relate books and authors by defining pairs of IDs in a new CSV file db/data/Books_Authors.csv. The name follows the usual convention, even though it looks a little different to the names of the other CSV files here; it is the namespace and entity name, but as there's no namespace that contextualises the entity here, there's no <namespace>- prefix part in the filename.

Remember that the entity (entity Books_Authors { ... }) is defined in the srv/extend.cds file where there's no namespace declaration.

Let's start by restoring the relationships we had before, where:

Charlotte Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë wrote Jane Eyre
Richard Carpenter wrote Catweazle
Edgar Allen Poe wrote Eleonora and also wrote The Raven (a poem, as it happens)

👉 Create the new file db/data/Books_Authors.csv and add the following to it:

book_ID,author_ID
201,101
207,107
251,150
252,150
271,170

Notes

EDMX: No change.

SQL: No change.

SERVER: The server restarts, and shows that data is now also being loaded from this new CSV file:

[cds] - connect to db > sqlite { database: ':memory:' }
 > init from db/data/Books_Authors.csv
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv
 > init from db/data/bookshop-Books.csv
/> successfully deployed to sqlite in-memory db

We can now traverse one level of relationships, to find the books that authors wrote, such as with http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books, which produces this:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors(books())",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 201,
          "author_ID": 101
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 107,
      "name": "Charlotte Brontë",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 207,
          "author_ID": 107
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 150,
      "name": "Edgar Allen Poe",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 251,
          "author_ID": 150
        },
        {
          "book_ID": 252,
          "author_ID": 150
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 170,
      "name": "Richard Carpenter",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 271,
          "author_ID": 170
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

Note that there is no author name information shown, we just get author ID information. That's because the author name is one step further on in the relationship chain.

Right now, we can see this query and result as like jumping half way across a stream to a stepping stone in the middle, which represents the link entity. To get to the other side, we need to take a second jump.

We can use the power of OData V4 to make the second jump so that we effectively cover both steps in one go, from Authors to Books_Authors to Books, like this: http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$expand=books($expand=book), which will emit:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors(books(book()))",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 201,
          "author_ID": 101,
          "book": {
            "ID": 201,
            "title": "Wuthering Heights"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 107,
      "name": "Charlotte Brontë",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 207,
          "author_ID": 107,
          "book": {
            "ID": 207,
            "title": "Jane Eyre"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 150,
      "name": "Edgar Allen Poe",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 251,
          "author_ID": 150,
          "book": {
            "ID": 251,
            "title": "The Raven"
          }
        },
        {
          "book_ID": 252,
          "author_ID": 150,
          "book": {
            "ID": 252,
            "title": "Eleonora"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 170,
      "name": "Richard Carpenter",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 271,
          "author_ID": 170,
          "book": {
            "ID": 271,
            "title": "Catweazle"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

17 Add a further author and book relationship to define co-authorship

Branch: 17-add-a-further-author-and-book-relationship-to-define-co-authorship.

As a final test, let's create a fictional collaboration between Ellis Bell and Emily Brontë. Ellis Bell was the pen name under which Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights, so it sort of makes sense. Or maybe it doesn't. Anyway.

👉 Add a new record to the end of db/data/bookshop-Authors.csv to represent Ellis Bell, so it looks like this:

ID,name
101,Emily Brontë
107,Charlotte Brontë
150,Edgar Allen Poe
170,Richard Carpenter
102,Ellis Bell

👉 Also add a new record to the end of db/data/Books_Authors.csv to link book Wuthering Heights (ID 201) with author Ellis Bell (ID 102), so it looks like this:

book_ID,author_ID
201,101
207,107
251,150
252,150
271,170
201,102

👉 Now check that both Emily Brontë and Ellis Bell appear as authors, with http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$search=Ellis OR Emily for example:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë"
    },
    {
      "ID": 102,
      "name": "Ellis Bell"
    }
  ]
}

👉 And now check that Wuthering Heights is now recorded as being co-written by both authors, with http://localhost:4004/z/Books?$filter=title eq 'Wuthering Heights'&$expand=authors($expand=author):

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Books(authors(author()))",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 201,
      "title": "Wuthering Heights",
      "authors": [
        {
          "book_ID": 201,
          "author_ID": 101,
          "author": {
            "ID": 101,
            "name": "Emily Brontë"
          }
        },
        {
          "book_ID": 201,
          "author_ID": 102,
          "author": {
            "ID": 102,
            "name": "Ellis Bell"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

👉 As one last test, what about building upon the search for Emily and Ellis, to display the book or books each wrote, in the result? Let's try it: http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$search=Ellis OR Emily&$expand=books($expand=book). This delivers what we want:

{
  "@odata.context": "$metadata#Authors(books(book()))",
  "value": [
    {
      "ID": 101,
      "name": "Emily Brontë",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 201,
          "author_ID": 101,
          "book": {
            "ID": 201,
            "title": "Wuthering Heights"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "ID": 102,
      "name": "Ellis Bell",
      "books": [
        {
          "book_ID": 201,
          "author_ID": 102,
          "book": {
            "ID": 201,
            "title": "Wuthering Heights"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

One question for you to ponder here. Given the URL for this resource, which is:

http://localhost:4004/z/Authors?$search=Ellis OR Emily&$expand=books($expand=book)

... how exactly does the $expand=books($expand=book) part work? What is the difference between books and book here? Can you follow the navigation properties through?

Wrapping up

We now have a fully functioning many-to-many relationship set up between our books and our authors, built with a pair of (one-) to-many managed associations linked together with a link entity. It was a long journey, but hopefully a worthwhile one.

If you made it to here, great work and congratulations!

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guide

guide

README.md

Understanding and exploring managed associations in CAP

01 Clone this repo and set up a new empty CAP project

02 Start with the basic persistence layer artifacts and set up monitoring

Notes

03 Add an empty service

Notes

04 Add the Books entity but not inside the service

Notes

05 Put the Books entity inside the service

Notes

06 Add the Authors entity inside the service

Notes

07 Add a basic relationship with a to-one managed association, at the persistence layer

Notes

08 Add the author_ID field to the Books CSV data

Notes

09 Move the current to-one managed association from the persistence layer to the service layer

Notes

10 Add a reverse to-many managed association from Authors to Books

Notes

11 Fix the to-many managed association

Notes

12 Attempt to follow the to-many managed association from author to books

13 Create a link entity as the basis for a many-to-many relationship

Notes

14 Relate each of the Books and Authors entities to the new link entity

Notes

15 Add the link entity to the service

Notes

16 Add data to the link entity to relate books and authors

Notes

17 Add a further author and book relationship to define co-authorship

Wrapping up

Files

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Latest commit

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guide

Folders and files

parent directory

README.md

Understanding and exploring managed associations in CAP

01 Clone this repo and set up a new empty CAP project

02 Start with the basic persistence layer artifacts and set up monitoring

Notes

03 Add an empty service

Notes

04 Add the Books entity but not inside the service

Notes

05 Put the Books entity inside the service

Notes

06 Add the Authors entity inside the service

Notes

07 Add a basic relationship with a to-one managed association, at the persistence layer

Notes

08 Add the author_ID field to the Books CSV data

Notes

09 Move the current to-one managed association from the persistence layer to the service layer

Notes

10 Add a reverse to-many managed association from Authors to Books

Notes

11 Fix the to-many managed association

Notes

12 Attempt to follow the to-many managed association from author to books

13 Create a link entity as the basis for a many-to-many relationship

Notes

14 Relate each of the Books and Authors entities to the new link entity

Notes

15 Add the link entity to the service

Notes

16 Add data to the link entity to relate books and authors

Notes

17 Add a further author and book relationship to define co-authorship

Wrapping up