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

What are the comparison operator in sql, What are the comparison operator i...

What are the comparison operator in SQL?  Comparison operator in SQL are =, LIKE and BETWEEN

Failure controlling methods, Failure Controlling Methods: Failures can be h...

Failure Controlling Methods: Failures can be handled using different recovery methods that are talk about later in the unit. But the first question is doing we really require recov

How to insert data in your table from another table, How to Insert data in ...

How to Insert data in your table from another table? insert into e.g, To insert tuples from employee into N_emp created above, use following statement Insert into N_emp

What are segments in oracle, What are segments in oracle? Segments - Ea...

What are segments in oracle? Segments - Each table has single field of disk space, known as segment, set aside for it in the tablespace. Segments consist of contiguous sections

Which operation is used if we are interested certain columns, Which operati...

Which operation is used if we are interested in only certain columns of a table? PROJECTION operation is used if we are interested in only certain columns of a table.

Related Rates, All edges of a cube are expanding at a rate of 6 centimeters...

All edges of a cube are expanding at a rate of 6 centimeters per second. How fast is the surface area changing when each edge is (a) 2 centimeters and (b) 10 centimeters?

State in detail about data flow diagram, What is a Data Flow Diagram?  ...

What is a Data Flow Diagram?  Data Flow Diagram: A data flow diagram is the graph that shows flow of data values from their sources in objects in the course of processes whic

Define query language, Define query language?   A query is a statement ...

Define query language?   A query is a statement requesting the retrieval of information. The portion of DML that includes information retrieval is known as a query language.

State the step- implement software control designer, Implementing software ...

Implementing software control To implement software control designer must redesign strategy of state event model which is present in dynamic model. There are three basic ap

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