OOP relationships. Advice needed!! PLEASE

  • Thread starter Thread starter Nemisis
  • Start date Start date
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Nemisis

Hi all,

I am trying to work out whether my objects whould contain child objects
or just an ID property to the linking object.

I have the following table in my SQL database

tblCompany
ID
Name
SalespersonID

Then a have tblSalesPerson

tblSalesPerson
ID
FirstName
LastName

If i am going to design this, is it best OOP practice to include the
SalesPersonID within the Company object, or would i create a
CompanySalesperson object within the company object.

If anyone has a good article to read on this, or can explain it too me,
i would really really really appreicate it. Ta
 
What is your model? A SalesPerson is an employee of a Company and there can
be multiple SalesPersons within one Company? Or A SalesPerson sells to a
Company and there can be multiple Companies for one SalesPerson?
 
First, I'd change the design of the database because currently each
company can only have one salesperson. Remove the SalespersonID field
from the Companies table and add a CompanyID to the Salespeople table.
Then you can have more then one salesperson with the same CompanyID,
which is a one-to-many relationship between Companies and Salespeople.

You could then implement this in your .NET code as having a Company
object which holds a reference to a list of SalesPerson objects, for
example:

List<SalesPerson> salespeople;

This type of relationship between Companies and Salespeople is called
"composition".
 
Changing the database structure is not an option, i wish it was, i
think it is easier to understand the way that you have described.

A company can only have one salesperson assigned to it, and a
salesperson can be the salesperson for many companies.
 
Ok, I see your predicament. Your Company objects could each hold a
reference to Salesperson object, and because it's only a reference you
could have more than one Company pointing to the same Salesperson
object.
 
Chris said:
Ok, I see your predicament. Your Company objects could each hold a
reference to Salesperson object, and because it's only a reference you
could have more than one Company pointing to the same Salesperson
object.
Click to expand...

Chris,

U will have to forgive me, as i am a bit new to OOP, and not really
sure what you mean there.

The thing that confuses me a lil, is that a company DOES NOT have to
link to a salesperson, so it is optional.
 
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