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

Differentiate between procedural and non procedural language, Differentiate...

Differentiate between Procedural and non procedural languages ? Procedural and non procedural languages - A procedural language specifies the operations to be performed on th

Explain the operation of the data warehouse, Using a labelled diagram expla...

Using a labelled diagram explain the operation of the Data Warehouse, define the basic architectural components and outline the main functionalities. Briefly explain the role an op

Distributed database management system, Question (a) Differentiate betw...

Question (a) Differentiate between the following terms: (i) Distributed Database v/s Distributed Database management System (ii) Homogeneous Distributed Database v/s Hete

The natural join is equal to which product, The natural join is equal to wh...

The natural join is equal to which product? The natural join is equal to Combination of projection and Cartesian product

The extract statement do in extract datasets, What does the extract stateme...

What does the extract statement do in extract datasets? The data is written to virtual memory by extract commands.

Log, what is the need of a log in dbms

what is the need of a log in dbms

Give an expression within sql for queries, Consider the following relations...

Consider the following relations:  S (S#, SNAME, STATUS, CITY)  SP (S#, P#, QTY)  P (P#, PNAME, COLOR, WEIGHT, CITY) Give an expression within SQL for each of queries b

List and also explain the dissimilar stages of ddlc, List and also explain ...

List and also explain the dissimilar stages of DDLC ?

Guidelines for creation of table, Guidelines for creation of table: ...

Guidelines for creation of table: Table name should begin with an alphabet. In table name, single quotes and blank spaces are not allowed. Reserve words of that DBM

MYSQL, write an SQL statement to create the database in MYSQL server

write an SQL statement to create the database in MYSQL server

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