When building a category navigation system for a business directory with a many to many relationship, I understand that it is good practise to create a mapping table.
Category Table ( CategoryId, CategoryName )
Business Table ( BusinessId, BusinessName )
Category Mapping Table ( BusinessId, CategoryId )
When I join the Category table and Business table to create the mapping table would this then give me a table which contains every possible business and category relationship?
I have 800 categories and 1000 business listings. Would that then give me a table containing 800,000 possible relationships. If so how would I focus on only the relationships that exist? Would I have to go through all listings (800,000) marking them as true or false?
I have been getting really confused about this so any help would be much appreciated.