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In the relational model of databases, a primary key is a designated attribute that can reliably identify and distinguish between each individual record in a table.The database creator can choose an existing unique attribute or combination of attributes from the table (a natural key) to act as its primary key, or create a new attribute containing a unique ID that exists solely for this purpose ...
A candidate key is a minimal superkey, [1] i.e., a superkey that does not contain a smaller one. Therefore, a relation can have multiple candidate keys, each with a different number of attributes. [2] Specific candidate keys are sometimes called primary keys, secondary keys or alternate keys.
Usually one candidate key is chosen to be called the primary key and used in preference over the other candidate keys, which are then called alternate keys. A candidate key is a unique identifier enforcing that no tuple will be duplicated; this would make the relation into something else, namely a bag, by violating the basic definition of a set ...
In a relational database, a weak entity is an entity that cannot be uniquely identified by its attributes alone; therefore, it must use a foreign key in conjunction with its attributes to create a primary key. The foreign key is typically a primary key of an entity it is related to. The foreign key is an attribute of the identifying (or owner ...
When the data model is instantiated into a physical database, it is the key that the system uses the most when accessing the table, or joining the tables together when selecting data. Alternate A non-primary key that can be used to identify only one row in a table. Alternate keys may be used like a primary key in a single-table select. Foreign ...
The extracted relations are amended with foreign keys referring to the primary key of the relation which contained it. The process can be applied recursively to non-simple domains nested in multiple levels. [4] In this example, Customer ID is the primary key of the containing relations and will therefore be appended as foreign key to the new ...
They are either reserved (e.g. SELECT, COUNT and YEAR), or non-reserved (e.g. ASC, DOMAIN and KEY). List of SQL reserved words. Identifiers are names on database objects, like tables, columns and schemas. An identifier may not be equal to a reserved keyword, unless it is a delimited identifier.
Using a SELECT statement after the INSERT statement with a database-specific function that returns the generated primary key for the most recently inserted row. For example, LAST_INSERT_ID() for MySQL. Using a unique combination of elements from the original SQL INSERT in a subsequent SELECT statement.