Re: foreign key constraint versus referential integrity constraint

From: Bob Badour <bbadour_at_pei.sympatico.ca>
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:30:50 -0300
Message-ID: <4ae9a71a$0$26500$9a566e8b_at_news.aliant.net>


paul c wrote:

> Bob Badour wrote:
>

>> paul c wrote:
>>
>>> Mr. Scott wrote:
>>> ...
>>>
>>>> Constraints specify what can be true, not what is supposed to be 
>>>> true. ...
>>>
>>> I thought constraints constrain, ie., limit. (I've often thought that 
>>> isn't enough in practice, eg., I've never seen a default defined 
>>> algebraically and beyond that I wouldn't mind a variation on 
>>> constraints that lets me force an assertion, eg., some tuple that is 
>>> always present, whether the user has thought to include it or not, 
>>> probably CJ Date would disagree with that.)
>>
>> I cannot make sense of what you wrote. I suspect you have omitted much 
>> context, internal dialogue and assumptions.

>
> I usually try to omit at least two out of three of those, otherwise even
> I can't guess what I'm talking about! Being of a minimalist persuasion,
> not wanting more concepts than I can handle, I think I'd rather have
> constraints, unlike CJ Date's, that are applied against values without
> requiring them to be 'truth-valued' and 'and-ed' if you will. I don't
> have a good name for this.

If not truth-valued, what would they be? Either something passes the constraint or it doesn't. Received on Thu Oct 29 2009 - 15:30:50 CET

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