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Referential integrity is a property of data stating that all its references are valid. In the context of relational databases , it requires that if a value of one attribute (column) of a relation (table) references a value of another attribute (either in the same or a different relation), then the referenced value must exist.
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 ...
For this example it is assumed that each book has only one author. A table that conforms to the relational model has a primary key which uniquely identifies a row. In our example, the primary key is a composite key of {Title, Format} (indicated by the underlining):
The term integrity encompasses accuracy, consistency and some aspects of validation (see also Data integrity) but is rarely used by itself in data-cleansing contexts because it is insufficiently specific. (For example, "referential integrity" is a term used to refer to the enforcement of foreign-key constraints above.)
Referential integrity by DBMS is now possible, but one cannot use Supplier_Code as foreign key on Product table and using Supplier_Key as foreign key each product is tied on specific time slice. If there is more than one date on the fact (e.g. Order_Date, Delivery_Date, Invoice_Payment_Date) one can choose which date to use for a query.
A hypothetical example of a failure to meet third normal form would be a hospital database having a table of patients which included a column for the telephone number of their doctor. (The phone number is dependent on the doctor, rather than the patient, thus would be better stored in a table of doctors.)
Databases and other data stores which treat the integrity of data as paramount often include the ability to handle transactions to maintain the integrity of data. A single transaction consists of one or more independent units of work, each reading and/or writing information to a database or other data store.
For example, in a federated Human Resources environment, the enterprise software may focus on storing people's data as current status, adding a few fields to identify the date of hire, date of last promotion, etc. However, this simplification can introduce business-impacting errors into dependent systems for planning and forecasting.