Explain the terms primary key, candidate key, alternate key, Database Management System

Assignment Help:

Explain the terms primary key, candidate key, alternate key and secondary key. In the given table identify every key?

STUDENT(SID,Regno, Name, City)

Primary Key: The primary key of a relational table uniquely identify every record in the table. It can either be a general attribute (or set of attributes) which is guaranteed to be unique (such as Social Security Number in a table along with no more than one record per person) or it could be provided through the DBMS (such as a globally unique identifier, or GUID, in Microsoft SQL Server).

Candidate Key: A candidate key is a combination of attributes in which can be uniquely used to recognize a database record without any extraneous data. Each table may have one or more candidate keys. One of these candidate keys is chosen as the table primary key.

Alternate Key: An alternate key (or secondary key) is any candidate key that is not selected to be the primary key (PK).

For instance, a relational database along with a table "employee" could have attributes like

"employee_id", "bank_acct_no", and so on. In this case, both "employee_id" and
"bank_acct_no" serve as unique identifiers for a given employee, and could therefore arguably be used for a primary key. Therefore, both of them are known as "candidate keys". If, for example, "bank_acct_no" was chosen as the primary key, "employee_id" would become the alternate key

Secondary Key: Same as above

In above table SID is a primary key, SID and Regno are candidate keys and SIDor Regno are alternate or secondary key.


Related Discussions:- Explain the terms primary key, candidate key, alternate key

Update operations, The Update Operations : Update operations are used fo...

The Update Operations : Update operations are used for altering database values. The constraint violations faced by this operation are logically the similar as the problem faced

Field, examples of fields in a database

examples of fields in a database

Which product produces the relation that has attributes, Which product prod...

Which product produces the relation that has attributes of R1 and R2 ? Cartesian product produce the relation which has attributes of R1 and R2

Define single value and multivalued attribute, Define Single Value and Mult...

Define Single Value and Multivalued attribute Single value attribute comprise a single atomic value for an entity and multivalued attribute may have much more than one value f

What is 2nf, What is 2NF? A relation schema R is in 2NF if it is in 1NF...

What is 2NF? A relation schema R is in 2NF if it is in 1NF and every non-prime attribute A in R is fully functionally dependent on primary key.

Explain the data access protocol, (a) Explain the three types of potentia...

(a) Explain the three types of potential mistake which could occur if concurrency control is not properly enforced in the database system. Support your answer with appropriate ex

Illustrate how customer relationship is promoted, FitAll Ltd is a company t...

FitAll Ltd is a company that manufactures clothes. Its processes are manual and there are stand-alone Information Systems that aid to manage them. The Information Systems were purc

Derived horizontal fragmentation, Derived horizontal fragmentation: Some ap...

Derived horizontal fragmentation: Some applications may include a join of two or more relations. If the relations are stored at dissimilar locations, there may be a major overhead

Explain the structured decomposition, Differentiate between the object orie...

Differentiate between the object oriented decomposition and the structured decomposition? Process-oriented (structural) decomposition divides a complex process, function or tas

Write Your Message!

Captcha
Free Assignment Quote

Assured A++ Grade

Get guaranteed satisfaction & time on delivery in every assignment order you paid with us! We ensure premium quality solution document along with free turntin report!

All rights reserved! Copyrights ©2019-2020 ExpertsMind IT Educational Pvt Ltd