Question

I want to model, analyze and create a database consisting of information from a card game. Each round of the game would have an ID, time stamp, and 4 or more players (usually 4). I have defined my player table with its set of attributes. However since each round has 4 players, how do I efficiently implement the relationship between the round and the players?

Essentially each round has 4 distinct players, with the same attributes (with different values). It would seem odd to have one attribute(column) for each player since I would like to have some kind of link to a player table to keep my ‘objects’ independent and encapsulated. Is this a one to many relationship between the round and the 4 players?

When I draw my model on paper it seems to be more like a hierarchy. For example, I have a Round that has 4 Players and each Player has a Hand of cards. Is this is a relational model, hierarchial model, object model, or something else?

Also, can this be done in SQL? If not what should I use?
Any help/suggestions are much appreciated since all my experience is with relational databases in SQL.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Basically

   Round                                       Player
------------                              -----------------

round_id player_id others_attri       player_id info_attributes

Then, for each round, you need storage 4 rows in Round, with the same id and each player id, example, Round with id 1 where players 1,2,3,4 are in.

   Round               Player
-----------          -----------
1  1  date                1
1  2  date                2
1  3  date                3
1  4  date                4

player_id is a foraign key to player_id.

Or if you dont want storage date many times, do that:

Round                      player_play                      Player
---------                   ------------                -----------------

round_id info_attributes  round_id player_id        player_id info_attributes



Round           player_play              Player
-------         -----------          -----------
1 date           1  1                  1
                 1  2                  2
                 1  3                  3
                 1  4                  4