Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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. The columns in a candidate key are called prime attributes, [3] and a column that does not occur in any candidate key is called a non-prime attribute.
In a relational database, a candidate key uniquely identifies each row of data values in a database table. A candidate key comprises a single column or a set of columns in a single database table. No two distinct rows or data records in a database table can have the same data value (or combination of data values) in those candidate key columns ...
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 ...
Recall that the Book table below has a composite key of {Title, Format}, which will not satisfy 2NF if some subset of that key is a determinant. At this point in our design the key is not finalized as the primary key, so it is called a candidate key. Consider the following table:
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 ...
The table containing the foreign key is called the child table, and the table containing the candidate key is called the referenced or parent table. [4] In database relational modeling and implementation, a candidate key is a set of zero or more attributes, the values of which are guaranteed to be unique for each tuple (row) in a relation.
The fact table contains business facts (or measures), and foreign keys which refer to candidate keys (normally primary keys) in the dimension tables. Contrary to fact tables, dimension tables contain descriptive attributes (or fields) that are typically textual fields (or discrete numbers that behave like text).
Tables are linked by "key fields". A "primary key" assigns a field to its "special order table". For example, the "Doctor Last Name" field might be assigned as a primary key of the Doctor table with all people having same last name organized alphabetically according to the first three letters of their first name.