To form a composite key to be unique, you need to use ADD UNIQUE command. Following is the syntax −
alter table yourTableName add unique yourUniqueName( yourColumnName1,yourColumnName2,.......N);
Let us first create a table. Following is the query −
mysql> create table makeCompositeKeyDemo -> ( -> Id int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY, -> StudentName varchar(40), -> StudentAge int, -> StudentGrade char(1) -> ); Query OK, 0 rows affected (2.34 sec)
Now check the description of the table using DESC command. Following is the query −
mysql> desc makeCompositeKeyDemo;
This will produce the following output −
+--------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +--------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ | Id | int(11) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment | | StudentName | varchar(40) | YES | | NULL | | | StudentAge | int(11) | YES | | NULL | | | StudentGrade | char(1) | YES | | NULL | | +--------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ 4 rows in set (1.65 sec)
Following is the query to form a composite key to be unique −
mysql> alter table makeCompositeKeyDemo add unique Name_Age_Grade( StudentName,StudentAge,StudentGrade); Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.69 sec) Records: 0 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0
Now check the table description once again. Following is the query −
mysql> desc makeCompositeKeyDemo;
This will produce the following output −
+--------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ | Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra | +--------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ | Id | int(11) | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment | | StudentName | varchar(40) | YES | MUL | NULL | | | StudentAge | int(11) | YES | | NULL | | | StudentGrade | char(1) | YES | | NULL | | +--------------+-------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+ 4 rows in set (0.00 sec)