Re: Natural keys vs Aritficial Keys

--CELKO-- <jcelko212_at_earthlink.net> wrote:

>>> Consider business name. Duplicate business names can exist in adjacent provinces,
>states or countries. <<
>
>Ever look up the DUNS? It is great for International use. Again, do
>your Google Diligence, do your Wikipedia Diligence.

And I'm sure there are lots of small businesses that don't have a DUNS.

>>> I'm quite happy with an artificial primary key (autonumber in Access) and unique
>indexes in data fields [sic: columns are not fields] as appropriate.
><<
>The Department of Redundancies Department, just like Monty Python :)
>Multi-column keys are quite easy to use with a text editor.

So you're going to build an app with 100 forms using a text editor? I'm not.

>Assuming
>that you don't name them all "id" in violation of basic data modeling
>rules.

No, I like usingTony's Table and Field Naming Conventions http://www.granite.ab.ca/access/tablefieldnaming.htm   Which you have stated quite a while ago you don't like. Oh well.

Tony

-- 
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blogs/access/
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