ONE-TO-ONE relationship is one of the standard associations in a relational database. MySQL does not have predefined options to represent the one-to-one relationship. Still, we can implement this association by adding the primary Key from one of the tables as a foreign key into the other table.
This article will show you how to represent and implement a One-To-One association in a MySQL database using async/await requests to interact with the relational database in a Node.js API by following the same steps in the previous articles dedicated to one-to-many and many-to-many associations.
Related Articles:
- Best practices for optimizing MySQL database performance.
- How to implement Many-To-Many association in MySQL/Node.js API using async/await.
- How to implement One-To-Many association in MySQL/Node.js API.
- Complete JWT Authentication and Authorization System for MySQL/Node.js API.
- Automating Your MySQL Database with Triggers.
- How to use ON DELETE CASCADE in MySQL.
- MySQL + Event Scheduler: How to delete data from MYSQL table using Event Scheduler.
- Using MySQL Event Scheduler: A Complete Guide.
- How to define a One-To-One association in MYSQL?
- Implementation of our MySQL/Node.js boilerplate API
- Implementation of ONE-TO-ONE association in MySQL using async/await
- Writing the One-To-One association queries using promises
- Adding API Routes into apiRouter.js
- Testing our API routes with Postman
- 1- Route for Getting all employees with settings
- 2- Route for Getting an employee settings
- Conclusion
- You might also like:
How to define a One-To-One association in MYSQL?
One-To-One relationship is the least common association in data modeling because this type of relationship is rare in real life. It is generally used when dealing with sensitive data or information related to security that needs to be stored separately.
We say that a one-to-one relationship exists between two tables(A and B) if a single record in table A is related to one and only one record in table B. And a single record in table B is related to one and only one record in table A. We relate these two tables by:
- Adding a primary key in each one of two tables, then
- Adding the primary key from the first table into the second table as a single unique foreign key.
In this post, we will explain this association by presenting a simple example of the one-to-one relationship between two tables, Employee and Employee_settings.

The employee table contains the employee information, such as name, position, and wage. The Employee_settings table contains the employee settings for our application, such as the color theme or auto-login.
Employee Table:
employeeId | name | position | wage |
1 | employee1 | manager | 8000 |
2 | employee2 | engineer | 6000 |
3 | employee3 | designer | 5000 |
4 | employee4 | architect | 6000 |
5 | employee5 | engineer | 6000 |
6 | employee6 | designer | 5000 |
Employee_settings table:
id | employeeId | theme | autoLogin |
1 | 1 | dark | 0 |
2 | 4 | light | 1 |
You can tell that we can combine the two tables by adding this information to the Employee table and avoiding the Settings table. But, if most employees prefer to keep the default settings, we will have many empty fields in the Employee table. So splitting the employee data into two tables will simplify the Employee table management and allow us to store the optional data in a separated table Settings.
employeeId | name | position | wage | theme | autoLogin |
1 | employee1 | manager | 8000 | light | 0 (0 for false) |
2 | employee2 | engineer | 6000 | ||
3 | employee3 | designer | 5000 | ||
4 | employee4 | architect | 6000 | dark | 1 (1 for true) |
5 | employee5 | engineer | 6000 | ||
6 | employee6 | designer | 5000 |
For the rest of this article, It’s required that you have already set up MySQL on your computer and added it to your path. If not, you can use the following links:
Install MySQL Server and MySQL Workbench on Windows
How to add MySQL to the path in mac OS
How to install MySQL Workbench on mac OS
Implementation of our MySQL/Node.js boilerplate API
This section will implement the example given in the previous section and define the one-to-one association between the two tables Employee and Emplyee_settings in a Node.js and MySQL boilerplate API named “oneToOne-example”. The project directory contains the following files:
- server.js: Our boilerplate for the node.js server uses express as a web server. We mount the existing apiRouter into server.js.
- .env: To save all your environment variables.
- db.js: In this file, we will write our queries to connect the database and interact with its tables. We define these queries as methods of the db object in db.js.
- config.js: This file is used to save the configuration data and database connection options for the MySQL database.
- apiRouter.js: This apiRouter file will be the starting point for all your API routes.
If you want to know more details about the start-server we are using in this article, go ahead and check this article: Complete Guide to Build a RESTful API with Node.js and Express.
server.js
require("dotenv").config();
const express =require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const cors = require('cors');
const morgan = require('morgan');
const apiRouter = require('./apiRouter');
const app = express();
const PORT= process.env.PORT;
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(cors());
app.use(morgan('dev'));
app.use('/apiRouter',apiRouter)
app.listen(PORT, ()=>{
console.log(`server is listening on ${PORT}`);
});
module.exports = app;
.env
PORT = 3000
DB_PORT = “yourDBport”
DB_HOST = localhost
DB_USER = “yourusername”
DB_PASS = “yourDBpassword”
MYSQL_DB = “yourDBname”
CONNECTION_LIMIT = 10
package.json
//package.json
{
"name": "oneToOne-example",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "index.js",
"scripts": {
"test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
"start": "nodemon server.js "
},
"author": "",
"license": "ISC",
"dependencies": {
"body-parser": "^1.19.0",
"cors": "^2.8.5",
"dotenv": "^8.2.0",
"express": "^4.17.1",
"morgan": "^1.10.0",
"mysql": "^2.18.1",
"nodemon": "^2.0.4",
"save": "^2.4.0"
}
}
apiRouter.js
//apiRouter.js
const express =require('express');
const apiRouter = express.Router();
module.exports = apiRouter;
In this tutorial, we will store our data in a MySQL database named “oneToOneDB” with two tables named “Employee“ and “Employee_settings”.
If you want to know how to create a database using node.js, click here: How to create MySQL database using node.js.
We are using connection pooling instead of a single connection to connect our database. If you want to know more about connection pooling, read this article: Why is Connection Pooling better than Single Connection?.
db.js
//db.js
const mysql = require('mysql');
const pool = mysql.createPool({
connectionLimit: process.env.CONNECTION_LIMIT, // the number of connections node.js will hold open to our database
password: process.env.DB_PASS,
user: process.env.DB_USER,
database: process.env.MYSQL_DB,
host: process.env.DB_HOST,
port: process.env.DB_PORT
});
let db = {}; //create an empty object you will use later to write and export your queries.
module.exports = db
Implementation of ONE-TO-ONE association in MySQL using async/await
To implement a one-to-one relationship, we need two tables. That means we need to create two tables Employee and Employee_settings. We add the employee_id as a foreign key to the Employee_settings table to relate these tables.
You can use the following queries to create them:
Query to create Employee table :
//create Employee table
pool.query('create table if not exists Employee (' +
'id int auto_increment primary key,' +
'name varchar(255) not null,'+
'position varchar(255) not null,'+
'wage int not null)' , function (err, result) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log("Employee table created");
}
);
Query to create Employee_settings table :
//create Employee_settings table
pool.query('create table if not exists Employee_settings (' +
'id int auto_increment primary key,' +
'theme varchar(255) not null,' +
'autoLogin int default 0,'+
'employee_id int not null,'+
'foreign key (employee_id) references Employee(id))' , function (err, result) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log("Employee_settings table created");
}
);
Writing the One-To-One association queries using promises
In the following, we will define two functions as methods of the db object in our db.js.
The following function AllEmployeesSettings() selects all employees with their settings from Employee_settings table.
db.AllEmployeesSettings= ()=>{
return new Promise((resolve, reject)=>{
pool.query('SELECT * FROM Employee JOIN Employee_settings ON Employee.id = Employee_settings.employee_id', (error, employees)=>{
if(error){
return reject(error);
}
return resolve(employees);
})
})
}
The second function employeeSettings() takes the EmployeeId as a parameter and returns the employee with all his settings.
db.employeeSettings= (id)=>{
return new Promise((resolve, reject)=>{
pool.query('SELECT Employee.id, Employee.name, Employee_settings.theme, employee_settings.autoLogin FROM Employee JOIN Employee_settings ON Employee.id = Employee_settings.employee_id WHERE Employee.id= ? ', [id], (error, employeeSettings)=>{
if(error){
return reject(error);
}
return resolve(employeeSettings);
})
})
}
We used promises in our queries instead of callback functions; if you want to know why, please go ahead and read this article: How to interact with MySQL database using async/await promises in node.js ?
db.js
//db.js
const mysql = require('mysql');
const database = process.env.MYSQL_DB;
const pool = mysql.createPool({
connectionLimit: process.env.CONNECTION_LIMIT, // the number of connections node.js will hold open to our database
password: process.env.DB_PASS,
user: process.env.DB_USER,
database: process.env.MYSQL_DB,
host: process.env.DB_HOST,
port: process.env.DB_PORT
});
// create db tables
//create Employee table
pool.query('create table if not exists Employee (' +
'id int auto_increment primary key,' +
'name varchar(255) not null,'+
'position varchar(255) not null,'+
'wage int not null)' , function (err, result) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log("Employee table created");
}
);
//create Employee_settings table
pool.query('create table if not exists Employee_settings (' +
'id int auto_increment primary key,' +
'theme varchar(255) not null,' +
'autoLogin int default 0,'+
'employee_id int not null,'+
'foreign key (employee_id) references Employee(id))' , function (err, result) {
if (err) throw err;
console.log("Employee_settings table created");
}
);
let db = {}; //create an empty object you will use later to write and export your queries.
db.AllEmployeesSettings= ()=>{
return new Promise((resolve, reject)=>{
pool.query('SELECT * FROM Employee JOIN Employee_settings ON Employee.id = Employee_settings.employee_id', (error, employees)=>{
if(error){
return reject(error);
}
return resolve(employees);
})
})
}
db.employeeSettings= (id)=>{
return new Promise((resolve, reject)=>{
pool.query('SELECT Employee.id, Employee.name, Employee_settings.theme, employee_settings.autoLogin FROM Employee JOIN Employee_settings ON Employee.id = Employee_settings.employee_id WHERE Employee.id= ? ', [id], (error, employeeSettings)=>{
if(error){
return reject(error);
}
return resolve(employeeSettings);
})
})
}
module.exports = db
Adding API Routes into apiRouter.js
Before adding routes to your apiRouter.js using HTTP methods, first, you need to pull in the functions from db.js by adding this line of code to your apiRouter.js. To write our requests routes, we use the async functions.
const db = require('./db.js');
For more details about async/await functions and promises, go ahead and check this article: How to interact with MySQL database using async/await promises in node.js?
apiRouter.js
//apiRouter.js
const express =require('express');
const apiRouter = express.Router();
const db = require('./db.js');
// Get all employees with settings.
apiRouter.get('/employees-settings', async (req, res, next)=>{
try {
const employees = await db.AllEmployeesSettings();
res.status(200).json({employees: employees});
} catch(e) {
console.log(e);
res.sendStatus(500);
}
});
// Get an employee settings
apiRouter.param('employeeId', async (req, res, next, employeeId)=> {
try{
const employeeSettings = await db.employeeSettings(employeeId);
req.employeeSettings = employeeSettings;
next(); // go to apiRouter.get('/employee/:employeeId')
} catch(e) {
console.log(e);
res.sendStatus(404);
}
});
apiRouter.get('/employee/:employeeId', (req, res, next)=>{
res.status(200).json({employeeSettings: req.employeeSettings});
});
module.exports = apiRouter;
Testing our API routes with Postman
Before you start testing the API with Postman, you need first to populate our tables by inserting the data in the example above. You can do that manually by using the Workbench interface or creating routes in your API. To see how to do that, you can check here: How to interact with MySQL database using async/await promises in node.js ?

1- Route for Getting all employees with settings
To get all employees with settings, use the following setting in your Postman:
- Path: apiRouter/employees-settings
- Method: GET
- URL: http://localhost:3000/apiRouter/employees-settings
- Change the body type to “raw.”
- Change the format to “JSON.”

2- Route for Getting an employee settings
To get an employee settings with employeeId = 4, use the following setting in your Postman:
- Path: apiRouter/employee/:employeeId
- Method: GET
- URL: http://localhost:3000/apiRouter/employee/4
- Change the body type to “raw.”
- Change the format to “JSON.”

Conclusion
This article showed you how to represent and implement a One-To-One association in a MySQL database using async/await requests to interact with the relational database in a Node.js API.
If you want to see our implementation for the one-to-many and many-to-many associations, go ahead and check these two articles:
- How to implement Many-To-Many association in MySQL/Node.js API using async/await.
- How to implement One-To-Many association in MySQL/Node.js API.
You might also like:
Best practices for optimizing MySQL database performance.
ONE-TO-ONE Association in MYSQL Database using Sequelize async/await with Node.js
ONE-TO-MANY Association in MYSQL Database using Sequelize async/await with Node.js
MANY-TO-MANY Association in MYSQL Database using Sequelize async/await with Node.js.
How to add Routes to insert data into MySQL database-related tables in Node.js API?
Complete JWT Authentication and Authorization System for MySQL/Node.js API.
Example How to use initialize() Function in Node.js/Express API .
How to use Sequelize async/await to interact with MySQL database in Node.js.
How to interact with MySQL database using async/await promises in node.js ?
How to Build a Complete API for User Login and Authentication using MySQL and Node.js.
Why is Connection Pooling better than Single Connection?.
How to create MySQL database using node.js.
How to store Session in MySQL Database using express-mysql-session.