A thought on databases

Relational databases can become complex quickly due to the number of tables required to map all the relationships. It occurs to me that a simple structure might look as follows:

• 1 table for each class of data (where each record will share the same fields)
• 1 table defining relationships (recording the definition of the relationship between records)
• 1 relationship table (recording all the relationships)

Under this model, the number of database tables would be equal to the number of classes of data + 2.

Here's a simple example to illustrate the point:

Relationship table

ID	Class	Relationship ID	ID	Class
1618	People	7348	1234	Company
9371	People	0829	5678	Company

Companies table (a class of data about companies)

ID	Company name	Company registration number
1234	Blob inc.	555-666
5678	Yodle inc.	314159

People table (a class of data about people)

ID	First name	Second name
1618	Albus	Dumbledore
9373	Michael	Jackson

Defining relationships table

ID	Relationship name
0829	is employee of
7348	is shareholder of

This structure should facilitate all of the necessary queries. For example, a query of all the employees of a company.

A key feature is the directionality of the relationship: i.e. from A to B.