Re: Primary Key Theory Question

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004 10:27:18 +0200, "ben brugman" <ben_at_niethier.nl> wrote:

>> Do you know what "surrogate" means? (I think you're talking about an
>> artificial key, not a surrogate key. I could be wrong.)
>>
>I think I 'know' what "surrogate" means.
>
>Artificial : SSN, ISBN.
>
>Surrogate : a unique key (often extra), mostly used only in internal
>programming.

Where did you find those definitions?

In my experience, a surrogate key takes the place of a candidate key, and an artificial key isn't a key. An artificial key might uniquely identify a row, but it doesn't uniquely identify what the row represents.

-- 
Mike Sherrill
Information Management Systems