IBM Global Services

Foreign Key Relationships

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Objectives

The participants will be able to:

Define and Use Foreign Keys
Understand the Prerequisites for Constructing Foreign Key Relationships
Interpret Cardinality and Foreign Key Field Types
Create Foreign Key Relation

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Definition of Foreign Keys

Relationships between tables are represented in the ABAP Dictionary by

foreign keys.
A foreign key is a field (or combination of fields) that represents the primary
key of another table.

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Uses of Foreign Keys

Maintain data integrity

Provide help texts
Create aggregate dictionary objects

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Prerequisites for Constructing Foreign Key Relationships

The foreign key field and the primary key of the check table must share the same
domain.

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Foreign Keys: Key Terminology

Value Table The table containing the set of

allowed values attached to a domain

Check Table
The table that is referenced by a foreign
key

Foreign Key Table The table containing fields that are

the primary key of the other table

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Foreign Key Terminology: Check Table = Value Table

In many cases, the value table and the check table will be the same

Check Value
Table Table

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Foreign Key Terminology: Check Table Value Table

Sometimes check table is another table containing a subset of the records in

a value table.

Check Value
Table Table

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Establishing a Foreign Key Relationship in the ABAP

Dictionary
During defining Foreign Key Relationship, system suggests a Foreign Key
Relationship for you.

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Cardinality

When creating foreign key relationships, you should always specify the cardinality
of that relationship

n : m
1 1

C C

CN

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Creating a Foreign Key Relationship

Foreign key push-button

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Maintaining a Foreign Key Relationships Attributes

Enter a description (short text).

Check table

Maintain foreign
key type

Maintain cardinality n : m

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Foreign Keys with Multiple Fields

If the primary key of a check table has multiple fields (i.e. it has a composite
primary key), some type of assignment must be made for each field when
creating a foreign key relationship.

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Field-By-Field Assignment

When performing a field-by-field assignment, all key fields in the check table
are used to determine valid entries in the foreign key table.

Foreign Key Table Check Table

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Partial Foreign Keys

When creating a partial foreign key, certain fields are flagged as generic.
These fields are ignored by the system when validating records that are inserted
into the foreign key table.

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Constant Foreign Keys

When creating a constant foreign key, certain fields are assigned a literal value
Only records in the check table with that value in the corresponding field are
used to determine whether records in the foreign key table are valid.

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Combined use of Partial and Constant foreign keys

Generic foreign key

Constant foreign key

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Demonstration

Creation of a new transparent table for holding the payroll data for employees in
an organization and establish a foreign key relationship with the employee table
created for the previous chapter.

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Practice

Creation of a new transparent table for holding the payroll data for employees in
an organization and establish a foreign key relationship with the employee table
created for the previous chapter.

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Summary

Relationships between tables are represented in the ABAP Dictionary by foreign

keys. A foreign key is a field (or combination of fields) that represents the primary
key of another table.
Foreign keys maintain data integrity & provide help texts.
In order to establish a foreign key relationship in SAP, the fields involved must
share the same domain.

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Questions

What is a foreign key ?

What is the need to define a foreign key relationship ?
What is meant by cardinality in a foreign key relationship ?

21 Foreign Key Relationships | Dec-2008 2005 IBM Corporation