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When a new row is written to the table, a new unique value for the primary key is generated; this is the key that the system uses primarily for accessing the table. System performance is optimized for PKs. Other, more natural keys may also be identified and defined as alternate keys (AK). Often several columns are needed to form an AK (this is ...
A foreign key is a set of attributes in a table that refers to the primary key of another table, linking these two tables. In the context of relational databases, a foreign key is subject to an inclusion dependency constraint that the tuples consisting of the foreign key attributes in one relation, R, must also exist in some other (not necessarily distinct) relation, S; furthermore that those ...
Definition: Referential integrity is a database concept that ensures that relationships between tables remain consistent. When one table has a foreign key to another table, the concept of referential integrity states that you may not add a record to the table that contains the foreign key unless there is a corresponding record in the linked table.
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. A key that has migrated to another entity. At the most basic definition, "a key is a unique identifier", [1] so unique key is a pleonasm. Keys that are within their originating entity are ...
In a simple relational database implementation, each row of a table represents one instance of an entity type, and each field in a table represents an attribute type. In a relational database a relationship between entities is implemented by storing the primary key of one entity as a pointer or "foreign key" in the table of another entity.
Primary key. In the relational model of databases, a primary key is a designated attribute (column) 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 ...
When inspecting a row holding a foreign key reference to another table using a surrogate key, the meaning of the surrogate key's row cannot be discerned from the key itself. Every foreign key must be joined to see the related data item. If appropriate database constraints have not been set, or data imported from a legacy system where ...
Entity integrity is concerned with ensuring that each row of a table has a unique and non-null primary key value; this is the same as saying that each row in a table represents a single instance of the entity type modelled by the table. A requirement of E. F. Codd in his seminal paper is that a primary key of an entity, or any part of it, can ...