Re: Foreign Keys

On Sun, 05 Jan 2003 16:40:56 -0500, "Matty" <mattycruft_at_daemons.net> wrote:

>Howdy folks,
>
>I am hoping someone can clarify something for me. If I
>create a foreign key constraint on a table:
>
>ALTER TABLE bingo ADD constraint for_key_bingo
>FOREIGN KEY (col1, col2)
>REFERENCES yikes (col1,col2);
>
>and then add a new row to bingo, the col1/col2 attribute
>values have to exist in yikes. I am curious what other
>uses folks have for foreign keys?
>
>Thanks for any insight,
>Ryan
>
>
>
>
>

This can't be a serious question.
What else did you expect? The * purpose * of the foreign key is to avoid orphaned records and to enforce relational integrity. You need a foreign key if you have a *relationship* between 2 entities. If you don't define foreign keys and don't enforce relational integrity, you will end up in a mess. Obviously, given your question, you don't care about that.

Sybrand Bakker, Senior Oracle DBA

To reply remove -verwijderdit from my e-mail address Received on Sun Jan 05 2003 - 17:01:04 CST