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A candidate key is a minimal superkey, [1] i.e., a superkey that doesn't 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.
An artificial key made from data that is system assigned or generated when another candidate key exists. Surrogate keys are usually numeric ID values and often used for performance reasons. [citation needed] Candidate A key that may become the primary key. Primary The key that is selected as the primary key.
A candidate key (or minimal superkey) is a superkey that can't be reduced to a simpler superkey by removing an attribute. [ 3 ] For example, in an employee schema with attributes employeeID , name , job , and departmentID , if employeeID values are unique then employeeID combined with any or all of the other attributes can uniquely identify ...
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 ...
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 ...
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.
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The table's are candidate keys are: S 1 = {Court, Start time} S 2 = {Court, End time} S 3 = {Rate type, Start time} S 4 = {Rate type, End time} Only S 1, S 2, S 3 and S 4 are candidate keys (that is, minimal superkeys for that relation) because e.g. S 1 ⊂ S 5, so S 5 cannot be a candidate key.