Entity relationships
Learn about entity relationships.
In an entity relationship, one relationship covers both the forward and reverse relations.
Any entity relationship has the following properties:
- Defines links between entities: Entity-Entity
- May have attributes
- Supports taxonomies
- Is directional
- May have rules
- John is the parent of Sandra
- Sandra is the child of John
- John (Male) is the father of Sandra
- Sandra (Female) is the daughter of John
Relationships have their own properties including:
- Name
- Description
- Direction-un-directed, directed, bi-directional
- Start and End entities for the relationship
- Directional context
- Base attributes
- Simple
- Complex
Relationships can be organized into hierarchies by defining subtypes that are a more specific version of the parent supertype. For example, a family relationship can be a supertype of father, mother, sister, brother relationships. If a relationship type has a supertype, it inherits the properties and attributes from the supertype. A relationship can also have its own custom attributes. Relationships are directional - they have a start object and an end object, and the relationship has a labelPattern, which is displayed in any relationship facets that display the relationship:
In this example, Josephine is affiliated with the organization and has the "affiliated with" as the labelPattern.