Re: PRIMARY KEYS

This is unlike any database theory I've heard of.
Choosing a natural key over an artificial key is
the ideal. I've heard that a lot.

Sometimes there are several candidate keys to
choose from. And sometimes the primary keys
are more than one column.

Sometimes I bail out to an artificial key when the
primary key is too long, but it depends very much on how
the table will be accessed and who knows what and
when.

--elein

On Tuesday 20 May 2003 05:41, Karsten Hilbert wrote:
> And - if you agree with database theory - a bad one at that.
> Supposedly primary keys should be void of any meaning bar
> their primary key-ness. I got into the habit of starting
> any but the most simple table like this:
>
> create table (
> id serial primary key,
> ...
>
> Never had any trouble with that. Good or bad practice ? Gotta
> decide for yourself.
>
> Karsten
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