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

Write short note on events, Write short note on Events Events consist ...

Write short note on Events Events consist of inputs, interrupts, decisions and actions performed by any external device or users. Every event always has a sender and receiver.

The logical dbms architecture, Normal 0 false false false ...

Normal 0 false false false EN-IN X-NONE X-NONE

Extended star schema, Why did SAP introduce the extended star schema? Expla...

Why did SAP introduce the extended star schema? Explain why it is reported to be better than the traditional schema model?

Case-based online phone repair, please i request for your assistance in de...

please i request for your assistance in developing a case-based online phone repair

What is a virtual table that draws its data from the result, What is a virt...

What is a virtual table that draws its data from the result of an SQL SELECT statement? View is a virtual table that draws its data from the result of an SQL SELECT statement.

Process-oriented decompositions, Process-oriented decompositions Pr...

Process-oriented decompositions Process-oriented decompositions divide complex process, task or function into simpler sub processes until they get simple enough to be deal

What is hierarchical dbms, What is Hierarchical DBMS In HDBMS, data is ...

What is Hierarchical DBMS In HDBMS, data is structured in a tree like manner. There is a parent-child relationship between data items and the data model is very suitable for re

Relational constraints, Relational and E-R Model There are three types o...

Relational and E-R Model There are three types of constraints on relational database that have: DOMAIN CONSTRAINT PRIMARY KEY CONSTRAINT INTEGRITY CONSTRAINT

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