Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
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 requirement of E. F. Codd in his seminal paper is that a primary key of an entity, or any part of it, can never take a null value. [1] The relational model states that every relation (or table ) must have an identifier, called the primary key (abbreviated PK), in such a way that every row of the same relation be identifiable by its content ...
A table (called the referencing table) can refer to a column (or a group of columns) in another table (the referenced table) by using a foreign key. The referenced column(s) in the referenced table must be under a unique constraint, such as a primary key. Also, self-references are possible (not fully implemented in MS SQL Server though [5]).
In principle any key may be referenced by foreign keys. Some SQL DBMSs only allow a foreign key constraint against a primary key but most systems will allow a foreign key constraint to reference any key of a table.
A check constraint is a type of integrity constraint in SQL which specifies a requirement that must be met by each row in a database table. The constraint must be a predicate . It can refer to a single column, or multiple columns of the table.
Set-Membership constraints: The values for a column come from a set of discrete values or codes. For example, a person's sex may be Female, Male or Non-Binary. Foreign-key constraints: This is the more general case of set membership. The set of values in a column is defined in a column of another table that contains unique values.
In database systems, a propagation constraint "details what should happen to a related table when we update a row or rows of a target table" (Paul Beynon-Davies, 2004, p.108). Tables are linked using primary key to foreign key relationships.
An example of a data-integrity mechanism is the parent-and-child relationship of related records. If a parent record owns one or more related child records all of the referential integrity processes are handled by the database itself, which automatically ensures the accuracy and integrity of the data so that no child record can exist without a parent (also called being orphaned) and that no ...