Which makes for a better primary key: natural data points or meaningless values? Database developers have strong opinions on this facet of primary key design. This article settles the debate once ...

The column (field) in a relational database that uniquely identifies the row in the table. For example, account number is often a primary key. A "composite primary key" or "super key" is made up ...

Learn how to add and remove Primary Keys from an Access database table. The primary key's purpose is to promptly associate data from multiple tables and combine that data.

Some database designers may feel that it’s OK to arbitrarily assign all dimensional foreign keys as part of a fact’s primary key even when one or more do not actually contribute to the fact table’s ...

10 tips for choosing between a surrogate and natural primary key Your email has been sent The superiority of surrogate versus natural keys is a hotly debated topic among database developers. Susan ...

All documents in a MongoDB collection have a primary key dubbed _id . This field is automatically assigned to a document upon insert, so there’s rarely a need to provide it. What’s interesting ...

Generated keys can be a useful tool in creating logical database designs, but they can be easily over-used. The designer must consider whether the business truly wishes to drive a function that ...