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How Do I Make and Populate My Own Database?

Database-Schema

a Database Schema describes the structure of a database. Database schemas generally contain information about table/column names, data types/constraints, relationships between tables, and user roles.

PostgreSQL Naming Conventions

There are several naming conventions in PostgreSQL:

  • Column names should be lower case with underscores between words (eg., birth_date).
  • The primary key of a table is often named id.

Database Schema Design Tools

The image above shows an example database schema that was illustrated using a design tool. The schema contains four tables named orders, customers, orders_items, and items, respectively. The lines in the visualization show how columns in different tables are related to each other.

This image shows a database with four tables named orders, customers, orders_items, and items. The four tables are related via lines that connect relevant columns to each other.

Database Tables

Database schemas describe the number of tables in a database and the data that they contain. Database tables should usually relate to a single construct described by an identifier called a primary key. For example, in an orders table where every order has a customer, it would be inefficient to write the complete details of each customer for every order they made. Instead, a separate customers table could contain that information.

PostgreSQL Variable Types

When designing a database schema in PostgreSQL, every column must have a data type. For example, the table created in the example code has three columns with types integer, varchar, and boolean, respectively. This helps preserve data integrity over time by restricting the data that can be entered into the table.

CREATE TABLE people (
    age integer,
    name varchar,
    is_citizen boolean
);

One-to-One Database Relationships

In a relational database, two tables have a one-to-one relationship if each row in one table links to exactly one row in the other table, and vice versa. For example, a table of employees and a table of employee_contact_info might have a one-to-one relationship if every employee listed in the employees table has contact information listed in the employee_contact_info table and vice versa.

Many-to-One Database Relationships

In a relational database, two tables have a many-to-one relationship if each row in one table links to multiple rows of the other table. For example, a table of customers and a table of orders would have a many-to-one relationship if each customer can make multiple orders, but each order can only be associated with one customer.

Many-to-Many Database Relationships

In a relational database, two tables have a many-to-many relationship if each row in one table can link to multiple rows in the other table, and vice versa. For example, a table of songs and a table of artists would likely have a many-to-many relationship because songs can have multiple artists and artists can have multiple songs.

Implementing a Many-to-One Database Relationship

A many-to-one relationship can be implemented in PostgreSQL by creating a foreign key that references the primary key of another table. For example, the code here implements a many-to-one relationship between an orders and a customers table, where each customer can be associated with multiple orders.

CREATE TABLE orders (
  order_number integer, 
  customer_id integer REFERENCES customers(id),
);


CREATE TABLE customers (
  id integer PRIMARY KEY,
  name text
);

Implementing a Many-to-Many Database Relationship

A many-to-many database relationship can be implemented in PostgreSQL using a third cross-reference table. This table should have two foreign keys referencing the primary keys of the related tables, as well as a composite primary key made up of the foreign key columns. For example, the code here implements a many-to-many relationship between a songs and an artists table.

CREATE TABLE songs (
  id integer PRIMARY KEY, 
  name varchar(100)
);


CREATE TABLE artists (
  id integer PRIMARY KEY, 
  name varchar(100)
);


CREATE TABLE songs_artists (
  artist_id integer REFERENCES artists(id), 
  song_id integer REFERENCES songs(id),
  PRIMARY KEY (artist_id, song_id)
);

Implementing a One-to-One Database Relationship

A one-to-one relationship can be enforced in PostgreSQL by first creating a many-to-one relationship via a foreign key, then implementing a UNIQUE constraint on the foreign key. For example, the code here implements a one-to-one relationship between tables named employees and contact_info.

CREATE TABLE employees (
  id integer PRIMARY KEY, 
  name varchar(100)
);


CREATE TABLE contact_info (
  employee_id integer REFERENCES employees(id) UNIQUE,
  email text,
  phone_number varchar(9)
);

Primary Keys

The primary key of a database table is a column or group of columns that can be used to uniquely identify every row of the table. For example, a table of students might have a primary key named student_id, which contains unique ID numbers for each student.

Composite Primary Keys

A primary key made up of multiple columns is called a composite primary key. Composite primary keys can be used when no single column uniquely identifies a row of a table, but multiple columns do. For example, the example table shown here could have a composite primary key made up of student_id and course_id.

| student_id| course_id | grade |
|-----------|-----------|-------|
| 1         | 503       | A     |
| 1         | 401       | A-    |
| 2         | 503       | B     |

Foreign Keys

Database tables can have foreign key(s), which reference the primary key of another table. For example, an orders table may contain a column named customer_id, which references an id column in a separate customers table. In this case, the customer_id column in the orders table could be designated as a foreign key.

Creating a Primary Key

In PostgreSQL, a column can be designated as a primary key using the PRIMARY KEY keyword. For example, the example code shows two CREATE TABLE statements. In the orders table, order_id is designated as a primary key. In the orders_items table, order_id and item_id are used to designate a composite primary key.

CREATE TABLE orders(
order_id integer PRIMARY KEY,
order_date date,
);


CREATE TABLE orders_items(
order_id integer,
order_date date,
item_id integer,
PRIMARY KEY (order_id,item_id)
);

Creating a Foreign Key

In PostgreSQL a foreign key is defined by using the REFERENCES keyword. For example, the code here shows two CREATE TABLE statements. The orders table contains a foreign key called customer_id, which references the id column of the customers table.

CREATE TABLE orders (
  order_number integer, 
  customer_id integer REFERENCES customers(id),
);


CREATE TABLE customers (
  id integer PRIMARY KEY,
  name text
);
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