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

Relational algebra, Consider the relation schemas as follows. works (per...

Consider the relation schemas as follows. works (person name, company name, salary); lives (person name, street, city); located in(company name, city); managers (person name

E-R Diagram, The H. I. Topi School of Business operates international busin...

The H. I. Topi School of Business operates international business programs in 10 locations throughout Europe. The school had its first class of graduates in 1965. The school keep

Computer, 1. Will you advise that your organization uses open source softwa...

1. Will you advise that your organization uses open source software and why? 2. Why is it important for business managers to have a basic understanding of the software development

Query evolution, what is query processing ,query optimization and performan...

what is query processing ,query optimization and performance turring?

Sql, sql is relationally complete-justify

sql is relationally complete-justify

Write short notes on data ware housing, Write short notes on data ware hous...

Write short notes on data ware housing? Data ware housing applications needs the transformation of data from many sources into a cohesive reliable step set of data configured a

What are the two aspect to the implementation of association, What are the ...

What are the two distinct aspects to the implementation of associations? i) It is required to define data declarations which will enable details of actual links to be stored. I

Example of database optimisation, Create 1 experiment to demonstrate an asp...

Create 1 experiment to demonstrate an aspect of query optimisation by using access-path structures (indexes), decomposition, or denormalisation. Once satisfied with your experiment

Explain the relational completeness, Explain the Relational Completeness ...

Explain the Relational Completeness Codd described the term relational completeness to consider to a language that is complete with respect to first-order predicate calculus ex

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