Re: does a table always need a PK?

From: Shane Petroff <shane_at_mayet.ca>
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2003 17:59:02 GMT
Message-ID: <GXN1b.819780$3C2.18558056@news3.calgary.shaw.ca>

Paul wrote:
> cbbrowne_at_acm.org says...
>

>>You almost certainly should have a UNIQUE primary key on every relation.

>
> Maybe this true in theory, but not essential in practice?
>
> ...
>
> AFAIK, this is true for the RDBMS's that I use

As far as anyone can tell, this is only true for some subset of dbms's right now. Whether it holds true for any dbms in general or any of the aforementioned at some other time is impossible to say. The implementation that some specific db uses at some point in time is entirely irrelevant to the topic at hand. The existence of a primary key is a topic related to the structure of the data, not an implementation strategy in some specific dbms.

Shane Received on Sat Aug 23 2003 - 12:59:02 CDT