What is the result of an association that links entities in Mendix?

An association in Mendix establishes a connection between two entities, enabling the retrieval and manipulation of related data. When an association is created between entities, what effectively happens is that the related object's ID is stored in the entity where the association is defined. This means that the association connects these entities in a way that allows one to reference or access related objects through their identifiers.

This mechanism is critical for maintaining data integrity and allows for navigating the data model efficiently. For example, if an entity named "Order" is associated with another entity called "Customer," the "Order" entity will store the "Customer" ID. This structure facilitates querying, can establish complex relationships, and ensures that proper foreign key relationships are upheld within the database.

The other choices do not accurately describe the result of an association in Mendix. A list of values or a combined data view does not represent how associations function within the underlying data structures. The concept of no change to the data structure is also misleading, as creating an association does indeed alter how entities relate to one another in the model.