Re: Index as primary key?

In article <6n7sgc$mtf$1_at_nnrp1.dejanews.com>,   rbook_at_my-dejanews.com wrote:
>
> Hi!
>
> For building the primary key in an dimension table i decided to
> use an own generated index.
> Can i use an index as primary key in ORACLE7?
> How should i do?
> It is better to generate an artifical primary key?
>
> Thank you!
> Ralf

Please be more explicit about what you actually want. Here are some guesses:
1.) Technically, a UNIQUE INDEX on Columns with the

    NOT NULL Property is equivalent to a primary key.     This means "go ahead, use your index" if you     referred to Oracle Indices created with     CREATE UNIQUE INDEX.
2.) You can use an autogenerated value as artificial

    primary key *value* by defining a BEFORE INSERT-Trigger     which pulls from a sequence number into your     primary key column.
3.) Sometimes artificial keys are indeed the better choice

    (ever tried to update a primary key column that has     referencing foreign key rows in another table?)     In this case, use technique 2.) for an artificial PK     *and* use tehchnique 1.) to ensure uniqueness of the     alternate key.
Hope this helped, Robert.

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