6.6. Reflexive Associations

Links can exist between instances of the same class, for example, between nodes in a ring network or authors of a book. Associations that have the same class at both ends are known as reflexive associations.

Definition: A reflexive association is an association between instances of the same class.

Reflexive associations to model sequence.

The individual author credits on a book (Authorships) appear in a certain sequence. Each credit may have a role (e.g., editor, compiled by, as told to). We can model this as in Figure 6.19.

Figure 6.19. Reflexive Association Modeling Sequence

Generally these reflexive associations are ...

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