Database Development & Design

Eng. Lina Hammad

July 25th ,2022
Database Keys
 Database Keys

► Keys are part of a relational database and a vital part of the structure of a table. They ensure each record within a table can be
uniquely identified by one or a combination of fields within the table. They help enforce integrity and help identify the relationship
between tables.

► Types of key:
► Super Key

► Candidate Key

► Primary Key

► Secondary Key or Alternative Key

► Foreign Key

► Simple Key
 Keys definition

► Super Key: any combination of fields within a table that uniquely identifies each record within that table (sets of
columns that it`s true to be key).
► Candidate Key: subset of a super key.
► Primary Key: a candidate key that is most appropriate to be the main reference key for the table (chosen key).
► Secondary Key or Alternative Key: keys left after chose the PK from candidate key.
► Foreign Key: a primary key from one table that appears as a field in another where the first table has a relationship to the second.
► Simple Key: Any of the keys described before consists of a single field to uniquely identify a record. In addition, the field in itself
cannot be broken down into other fields (ie.id, email).
 Primary key VS foreign key

Primary key Foreign key

PK Can not accept null values FK can accept multiple null values

Only one primary key in a table More than one foreign key in a table

PK uniquely identify a record in the table Foreign key is a field in the table that is
PK in another table
 Key categories

► Natural key : A key that is formed of attributes that already exist in the real world.
► Example, the Social Security Number (SSN) , email , mobile number.

► Surrogate key : A key with no business meaning.

► Example: customer ID , employee ID, id.
Constraints
 Constraints in DBMS

► The whole purpose of constraints is to maintain the data integrity during an update/delete/insert into a table.

► Types of constraints
► UNINOT NULL: makes sure that a column does not hold NULL value.
► UNIQUE: enforces a column to have unique values (cannot have duplicate values).
► DEFAULT: provides a default value to a column when there is no value provided while inserting a record into a table.
► CHECK: used for specifying range of values for a particular column of a table.
► Key Constraints (PK , FK):
► Primary key: Each table has certain set of columns, and each column allows a same type of data, based on its data type.
The column does not accept values of any other data type.
► Foreign keys: the columns of a table that points to the PK of another table. They act as a cross-reference between
tables.
► Domain constraints: The column does not accept values of any other data type. Domain Constraint = data type + Constraints
(NOT NULL / UNIQUE / PRIMARY KEY / FOREIGN KEY / CHECK / DEFAULT).
► Mapping constraints: mapping cardinality (relation).
 The Database Terms of Reference

RDBMS Entity modeling Normalization

Table Entity Relation
Row or record Entity Occurrence Tuple
Column or field Attribute Domain
data Organizational information Model data
Different Terminology in database

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 Instance and schema in DBMS

► Definition of schema: Design of a database is called the schema. Schema is of three types: (Physical schema, view
schema and conceptual schema).
► Basically, schema contains the structure and mapping of the object in it. It will remain same most of the time,
unless we modify the structure of the objects in schema.

► Definition of instance: The data stored in database at a particular moment of time is called instance of
database. Database schema defines the variable declarations in tables that belong to a particular database; the value of
these variables at a moment of time is called the instance of that database.
► i.e.; at any particular point in time, what is the state of database with data values in its object is called database
instance. It changes from time to time.