TYPES OF KEYS,FOREIGN KEY

Candidate Key:
A candidate key is a column or a set of columns that can qualify as a primary
key in the database. There can be multiple SQL candidate keys in a database
relation and each candidate can work as a primary key for the table.

student_table
s_id name age grade email id ssn

1 JOHN 21 72 [email protected] 123478

2 MIKE 20 68 [email protected] 124563

3 KATE 22 86 [email protected] 145678

4 ANDY 21 94 [email protected] 167982

If you consider the table above here s_Id, email id, ssn(social security
number) all are unique identifiers for the table so all these columns represent
candidate keys.

Candidate key is classified into

- Primary key
- Alternate key or Secondary key

Here s_id is represented as the primary key so email id and ssn are considered
as Alternate Key or secondary key.

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Now primary key is further classified as
- Simple primary key
- Composite primary key

Simple primary key: A simple primary key is made up of a single field only,
where only one column is a unique identifier for the table. If you considered the
table below here s_id is the unique identifier and is represented as simple
primary key

Student table
s_id name age grade

1 JOHN 21 72

2 MIKE 20 68

3 KATE 22 86

4 ANDY 21 94

Composite primary key:

A composite primary key combines more than one field to make a unique value.

Student table
s_id name age grade

1 JOHN 21 72

2 MIKE 20 68

3 KATE 22 86

4 ANDY 21 94

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 4 KATE 23 65

If you observe the table above here there are two students with id 4 in this table.
In this situation it is difficult to identify the row uniquely with only student id
but with the combination of student id and name it will be easy to identify the
row uniquely this is only called as composite key

You can create a MySQL composite Primary Key in the following two ways:

● During table creation using CREATE TABLE statements.

● After creating tables using the ALTER TABLE statement.

- Creating MySQL Composite Primary Key while Table Creation

To create a MySQL composite primary key during table creation you can follow
the steps.

Suppose you want to create a student with the fields (s_id, name, age, grade)
table with a MySQL Composite primary key (s_id, name).

CREATE TABLE student (

s_id INT,
name VARCHAR(45),
age INT,
grade INT,
PRIMARY KEY (s_id, name)
);

In the above, a MySQL Composite primary is created with the column names
s_id and name.

You can verify the same using the command as below:

DESCRIBE student;

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Output:

Field Type Null Key

s_id int NO PRI

name varchar(45) NO PRI

age int YES

grade int YES

After the successful execution of the above query, you can see that the Key
column has two PRI. It means you have successfully added the MySQL
Composite Primary key on s_id and name columns.

Next, you need to insert the values into this table as given below:

INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade) VALUES (1,

'JOHN', 21, 72);
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade) VALUES (2,
'MIKE', 20, 68);
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade) VALUES (3,
'KATE', 22, 86);
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade) VALUES (4,
'ANDY', 21, 94);
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade) VALUES (4,
'KATE', 23, 65);

Next, you can execute the following command to display the data in the table:

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SELECT * FROM student;

Output:

Student table
s_id name age grade

1 JOHN 21 72

2 MIKE 20 68

3 KATE 22 86

4 ANDY 21 94

4 KATE 23 65

To understand Composite key with better clarity

If you try to execute below query
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade) VALUES (1,
'JOHN', 21, 72);

Output:
Error Code: 1062. Duplicate entry '1-JOHN' for key
'student.PRIMARY'

You will get the above error because you are trying to add the same student id
and name into the student table.

If you try to execute below query

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INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade) VALUES (1,
'ANDY', 21, 72);

The data will be inserted successfully as the combination of name and id is

different.

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 - Adding MySQL Composite Primary Key in Existing Table

Now to do this let’s delete the constraint primary key from the above table. This
can be achieved using the query below

ALTER TABLE student DROP primary key;

To just check whether primary key constraint is delete let’s describe the table

DESCRIBE student;

Output:

Field Type Null key

s_id int NO

name varchar(45) NO

age int YES

grade int YES

As you can clearly see from the above table, s_id and name are not the primary
key in the key column.

Now, you can execute the ALTER TABLE statement to add a MySQL
Composite Primary key as follows:

ALTER TABLE sql_notes.student ADD PRIMARY KEY(s_id, name);

You can verify the MySQL Composite Primary key is added into a table or not
using the following command:

You can use the following command to verify if the MySQL Composite
Primary key has been added to the table.

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DESCRIBE sql_notes.student;

Output:

Field Type Null key

s_id int NO PRI

name varchar(45) NO PRI

age int YES

grade int YES

In the output, we can see that the key column has 2 PRI, which means we have
successfully added the composite primary key to s_id and name columns.

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Foreign Key:

Foreign Key helps establish database relationships and maintain referential

integrity. They help link one or more columns in one table to another table.
Here’s how to add foreign key in MySQL.

If an attribute is a primary key in one table but was not used as a primary key
in another table then the attribute which is not a primary key in the other table
is called a foreign key.

You can add foreign key to the table in two ways:

● During Table Creation using CREATE Command

● After Table creation using ALTER Command

- Adding foreign key during the creation of table

If you consider the table student and course below, here c_id is the fireign
key which is referring to the primary key c_id in the courses table.

The course table is the parent table which contains primary key which is
acting like foriegn key is student table

The student table is the child table which contains foriegn key

Student

s_id name age grade c_id

1 JOHN 21 72 1J

2 MIKE 20 68 1J

3 KATE 22 86 2P

4 ANDY 21 94 4PFS

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Course

c_id name rating

1J Java 4.6

2P Python 4.8

3JFS Java Full Stack 4.8

4PFS Python Full Stack 4.9

- First child table that is course table need to be created as shown below

CREATE TABLE sql_notes.courses(

c_id VARCHAR(5) PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(10),
rating decimal
);

- Create parent table with foreign key

CREATE TABLE sql_notes.student(

s_id tinyint PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(10),
age tinyint,
grade decimal(4,2),
c_id VARCHAR(5),
FOREIGN KEY(c_id) REFERENCES sql_notes.courses(c_id)
);

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You can verify the MySQL Composite Primary key is added into a table or not
using the following command:

You can use the following command to verify if the MySQL foreign key has
been added to the table.

DESCRIBE sql_notes.student;

Output:

Field Type Null Key

s_id tinyint NO PRI

name varchar(10) YES

age tinyint YES

grade decimal(4,2) YES

c_id varchar(5) YES MUL

Here If you observe the key of c_id is MUL. MUL is basically an index that is
neither a primary key nor a unique key. The name comes from “multiple”
because multiple occurences of the same value are allowed. IT indicates that
c_id is foreign key.

Note: If you try to add any c_id in the student table which is not there in the
course table that time you will get an error.

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Now let’s insert the values in the table

Course table
INSERT INTO courses (c_id, name, rating) VALUES ('1J',
'Java', 4.6);
INSERT INTO courses (c_id, name, rating) VALUES ('2P',
'Python', 4.8);
INSERT INTO courses (c_id, name, rating) VALUES ('3JFS',
'Java Full Stack', 4.8);
INSERT INTO courses(c_id, name, rating) VALUES ('4PFS',
'Python Full Stack', 4.9);

Student table
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade, c_id) VALUES
(1, 'JOHN', 21, 72, '1J');
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade, c_id) VALUES
(2, 'MIKE', 20, 68, '1J');
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade, c_id) VALUES
(3, 'KATE', 22, 86, '2P');
INSERT INTO student (s_id, name, age, grade, c_id) VALUES
(4, 'ANDY', 21, 94, '4PFS');

- After Table creation using ALTER Command

To understand this first let’s drop the foreign key constraint available in the
student table using the query below

ALTER TABLE student DROP FOREIGN KEY c_id;

Output:

0 3 18:53:4 ALTER TABLE Error Code: 1091. Can't 0.000

5 7 sql_notes.student DROP DROP 'c_id'; check that sec
FOREIGN KEY c_id column/key exists

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You will get the above error because you have not defined a constraint for
foreign key.

Now let’s try to add constraint for the foreign key using alter command

ALTER TABLE sql_notes.student

ADD CONSTRAINT cIdFk FOREIGN KEY (c_id)
REFERENCES sql_notes.courses(c_id);

Now by executing the below query you can drop a foreign key constraint

ALTER TABLE sql_notes.student DROP FOREIGN KEY cIdFk ;

Now there is no foreign key constraint in the table let’s add foreign key using
alter command

To create a FOREIGN KEY constraint on the "c_id" column when the

"student" table is already created, use the following MySQL:
ALTER TABLE student ADD FOREIGN KEY (c_id) REFERENCES courses(c_id);

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