How to design this database to avoid Circular Reference between 3 tables

Question

I have 3 tables.

• People
• Post
• Likes

When I design ER it has Circular Reference(cyclic dependency)..

 1:N

People --------< Post

 1:N

Post ----------< Likes

 1:M

People --------< Likes

Logic is

• 1 people can have many posts.
• 1 post has many likes.
• 1 people can like many posts (created person cannot like his own post).

How can i remove this kind of cyclic design?? or my db design is wrong??

any suggestion.. thanks advance

Answer 1

I'm not sure which part is cyclical in your example, but the design I first thought of was this:

People
Column1: Person ID
Column2: Name

Post
Column1: Post ID
Column2: Person ID who posted

Likes
Column1: Like ID
Column2: Post ID that was liked
Column3: Person ID that liked the Post