Database Key ?

From: Stefan Herz <herz.s_at_zdf.de>
Date: 26 May 1999 13:00:24 GMT
Message-ID: <374BDCC5.31151BA3@zdf.de>

Hello,
two Questions i'm asking myself, may some of you have any ideas. For my Oracle Datenbase(7.3.4), later 8i i've to look for the best kind of keys for my tables.

Question 1: Has the datatype of a key influence on the performance at skipping, data retrieving, adding or deleting? Should i use LONG,INTEGER oder VARCHAR(256), whats about a compound key?

Questions 2: If i want to have a world wide unique key, e.g. using an URL and a sequence. Should i take a VARCHAR(256) or a compound key with a VARCHAR(xyz) and an INTEGER or LONG . According to Question 1.

Are there any other criteria for the choice of a key type, instead ofunique,performance and flexibility ?

Thanks for all of the advices may given regards Stefan Received on Wed May 26 1999 - 08:00:24 CDT