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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 ...
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 ...
For referential integrity to hold in a relational database, any column in a base table that is declared a foreign key can only contain either null values or values from a parent table's primary key or a candidate key. [2] In other words, when a foreign key value is used it must reference a valid, existing primary key in the parent table. For ...
The Foreign Key serves as the link, and therefore the connection, between the two related tables in this sample database. 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 ...
The database translates the query into a "query plan" which may vary between executions, database versions and database software. This functionality is called the "query optimizer" as it is responsible for finding the best possible execution plan for the query, within applicable constraints. The SELECT statement has many optional clauses:
In his database textbook, Beynon-Davies explains the three ways that RDBMS handle deletions of target and related tuples: Restricted Delete - the user cannot delete the target row until all rows that point to it (via foreign keys) have been deleted. This means that all Housewares employees would need to be deleted, or their departments changed ...
For example, consider a database of electronic health records. Such a database could contain tables like the following: A doctor table with information about physicians. A patient table for medical subjects undergoing treatment. An appointment table with an entry for each hospital visit. Natural relationships exist between these entities:
As the load phase interacts with a database, the constraints defined in the database schema – as well as in triggers activated upon data load – apply (for example, uniqueness, referential integrity, mandatory fields), which also contribute to the overall data quality performance of the ETL process.