What is the recommended number of tables you should use to create many-to-many relationships?

Creating many-to-many relationships in a database typically involves the use of a junction table, which acts as a bridge between the two tables that contain the entities to be related. In this scenario, you would have two primary tables, each representing one side of the relationship, and then a third table, which is the junction table.

The junction table is essential because it contains foreign keys that reference the primary keys of the two tables, effectively establishing the many-to-many relationship between them. This allows for greater flexibility in how data is interrelated without redundancy, as each instance in the junction table can link to multiple records in each of the primary tables.

Therefore, three tables are needed: the two tables representing the entities and the junction table that enables their many-to-many connections. This structure not only adheres to normalization principles by avoiding duplicate data but also allows for efficient querying and data management when dealing with complex relationships.