title: Database Child Table Best Practice
body: <p>Consider the following hypothetical scenario:</p>
  
  <p>ObjectA 1 - * ObjectB
  ObjectC 1 - * ObjectB
  ObjectD 1 - * ObjectB</p>
  
  <p>Is there a best practice whether to create the following tables (multiple many to many tables)...</p>
  
  <p>ObjectA
  ObjectB
  ObjectC
  ObjectD
  ObjectA_ObjectB
  ObjectC_ObjectB
  ObjectD_ObjectB</p>
  
  <p>...versus (a single child table with multiple nullable columns)...</p>
  
  <p>ObjectB
     ObjectAID (nullable)
     ObjectCID (nullable)
     ObjectDID (nullable)</p>
  
  <p>I have a case where 7+ objects can have many ObjectB's associated with them.</p>
  
  <p>One note is that there is nothing special about the individual relationships (i.e. There isn't a property that the relationship between ObjectA and ObjectB have exclusively...otherwise I'd go straight for the many to many table).</p>