This is a simple and rough example of the SQL involved. I don't think it's necessary to confuse this concept with php. Just retrieve the collection like any other collection.

In this example, there are many names and many colors. People can have more than one favorite color, and many people can have the same favorite color. Hence many-to-many.

***** Tables ********** person -------- id - int name - varchar favColor ------------- id - int color - varchar person_color ------------ person_id - int (matches an id from person) color_id - int (matches an id from favColor) ****** Sample Query ****** SELECT name, color FROM person LEFT JOIN person_color ON (person.id=person_id) LEFT JOIN favColor ON (favColor.id=color_id) ****** Results From Sample Query ******* Name - Color --------------- John - Blue John - Red Mary - Yellow Timmy - Yellow Suzie - Green Suzie - Blue etc...

Is this helpful?

Example scenario: Students and courses at a university. A given student may take multiple courses, and naturally, a course will often have many students.

Sample table, simple design:

CREATE TABLE `Student` ( `StudentID` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `FirstName` VARCHAR(25), `LastName` VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`StudentID`) ) ENGINE=INNODB CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci CREATE TABLE `Course` ( `CourseID` SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, `Code` VARCHAR(10) CHARACTER SET ascii COLLATE ascii_general_ci NOT NULL, `Name` VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`CourseID`) ) ENGINE=INNODB CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_general_ci CREATE TABLE `CourseMembership` ( `Student` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL, `Course` SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL, PRIMARY KEY (`Student`, `Course`), CONSTRAINT `Constr_CourseMembership_Student_fk` FOREIGN KEY `Student_fk` (`Student`) REFERENCES `Student` (`StudentID`) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE, CONSTRAINT `Constr_CourseMembership_Course_fk` FOREIGN KEY `Course_fk` (`Course`) REFERENCES `Course` (`CourseID`) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE ) ENGINE=INNODB CHARACTER SET ascii COLLATE ascii_general_ci

Find all students registered for a course:

SELECT `Student`.* FROM `Student` JOIN `CourseMembership` ON `Student`.`StudentID` = `CourseMembership`.`Student` WHERE `CourseMembership`.`Course` = 1234

Find all courses taken by a specified student:

SELECT `Course`.* FROM `Course` JOIN `CourseMembership` ON `Course`.`CourseID` = `CourseMembership`.`Course` WHERE `CourseMembership`.`Student` = 5678