示例场景：大学中的学生和课程。给定的学生可能正在参加几门课程，并且自然而然地，一门课程通常会有很多学生。

示例表，简单设计：

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

查找所有注册课程的学生：

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

查找给定学生参加的所有课程：

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