Forcing Primary Keys

Jun 1, 2006

Hi all,

As our DB has no primary keys or indexes ive taken a copy of all populated tables and tried to force primary keys within a new DB.

the problem is all off the tables have multiple datasets within them, a dataset for each year. This causes all instances of ID numbers to not be unique as they are replicated for every year they are active.

Its a school database so a student who has been here for 3 years will have 3 instances of his ID number, one for each years' data set.

So how do i force primary keys if there is no unique identifier? ive been highlighting both data set and ID columns and setting that combination as the primary key.

Essentially i need to analyse the relationships between the tabls in a diagram and also run some speed tests to see how fast the db works when it has indexes and primary keys.

the reason im writing is that ive done this on ten tables and with another 160 to do im just checking im doing the right thing?

greg

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Auto Incremented Integer Primary Keys Vs Varchar Primary Keys

Aug 13, 2007

Hi,

I have recently been looking at a database and wondered if anyone can tell me what the advantages are supporting a unique collumn, which can essentially be seen as the primary key, with an identity seed integer primary key.

For example:

id [unique integer auto incremented primary key - not null],
ClientCode [unique index varchar - not null],
name [varchar null],
surname [varchar null]

isn't it just better to use ClientCode as the primary key straight of because when one references the above table, it can be done easier with the ClientCode since you dont have to do a lookup on the ClientCode everytime.

Regards
Mike

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Creating Inter-table Relationships Using Primary Keys/Foreign Keys Problem

Apr 11, 2006

Hello again,

I'm going through my tables and rewriting them so that I can create relationship-based constraints and create foreign keys among my tables. I didn't have a problem with a few of the tables but I seem to have come across a slightly confusing hiccup.

Here's the query for my Classes table:

Code:

CREATE TABLE Classes
(
class_id
INT
IDENTITY
PRIMARY KEY
NOT NULL,

teacher_id
INT
NOT NULL,

class_title
VARCHAR(50)
NOT NULL,

class_grade
SMALLINT
NOT NULL
DEFAULT 6,

class_tardies
SMALLINT
NOT NULL
DEFAULT 0,

class_absences
SMALLINT
NOT NULL
DEFAULT 0,

CONSTRAINT Teacher_instructs_ClassFKIndex1 FOREIGN KEY (teacher_id)
REFERENCES Users (user_id)
)

This statement runs without problems and I Create the relationship with my Users table just fine, having renamed it to teacher_id. I have a 1:n relationship between users and tables AND an n:m relationship because a user can be a student or a teacher, the difference is one field, user_type, which denotes what type of user a person is. In any case, the relationship that's 1:n from users to classes is that of the teacher instructing the class. The problem exists when I run my query for the intermediary table between the class and the gradebook:

Code:

CREATE TABLE Classes_have_Grades
(
class_id
INT
PRIMARY KEY
NOT NULL,

teacher_id
INT
NOT NULL,

grade_id
INT
NOT NULL,

CONSTRAINT Grades_for_ClassesFKIndex1 FOREIGN KEY (grade_id)
REFERENCES Grades (grade_id),

CONSTRAINT Classes_have_gradesFKIndex2 FOREIGN KEY (class_id, teacher_id)
REFERENCES Classes (class_id, teacher_id)
)

Query Analyzer spits out: Quote: Originally Posted by Query Analyzer There are no primary or candidate keys in the referenced table 'Classes' that match the referencing column list in the foreign key 'Classes_have_gradesFKIndex2'. Now, I know in SQL Server 2000 you can only have one primary key. Does that mean I can have a multi-columned Primary key (which is in fact what I would like) or does that mean that just one field can be a primary key and that a table can have only the one primary key?

In addition, what is a "candidate" key? Will making the other fields "Candidate" keys solve my problem?

Thank you for your assistance.