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Primary and Foreign Keys

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2 views2 pages

Primary and Foreign Keys

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bob.ilukhor
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Lecturer : Damien Kettle Module : Database Administration

Tutorial – Primary and Foreign Keys

Primary Keys
The PRIMARY KEY constraint uniquely identifies each record in a database table.

Primary keys must contain unique values.

A primary key column cannot contain NULL values.

Each table should have a primary key, and each table can have only ONE primary key.

SQL PRIMARY KEY Constraint on CREATE TABLE


The following SQL creates a PRIMARY KEY on the "P_Id" column when the "Persons" table is created:

CREATE TABLE Persons


(
P_Id int NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
LastName nvarchar(255) NOT NULL,
FirstName nvarchar(255),
Address nvarchar(255),
City narchar(255)
)

SQL PRIMARY KEY Constraint on ALTER TABLE


To create a PRIMARY KEY constraint on the "P_Id" column when the table is already created, use the
following SQL:

ALTER TABLE Persons


ADD PRIMARY KEY (P_Id)

Note: If you use the ALTER TABLE statement to add a primary key, the primary key column(s) must
already have been declared to not contain NULL values (when the table was first created).
Lecturer : Damien Kettle Module : Database Administration

Foreign Keys
A FOREIGN KEY in one table points to a PRIMARY KEY in another table.

Let's illustrate the foreign key with an example. Look at the following two tables:

The "Persons" table:

The "Orders" table:

Note that the "P_Id" column in the "Orders" table points to the "P_Id" column in the "Persons"
table.

The "P_Id" column in the "Persons" table is the PRIMARY KEY in the "Persons" table.

The "P_Id" column in the "Orders" table is a FOREIGN KEY in the "Orders" table.

SQL FOREIGN KEY on CREATE TABLE


CREATE TABLE Orders
(
O_Id int NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
OrderNo int NOT NULL,
P_Id int FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES Persons(P_Id)
)

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