surrogate keys or composite?

From: amonte <ax.mount_at_gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 12:31:47 +0200
Message-ID: <85c1fb130606200331o50caab38l827b090a19c436a5@mail.gmail.com>

Hi all

Reviewing an application over here and came across to an issue, probably not a very big issue but have kept me thinking several days.

The database is designed to report the "workflow" about payments to suppliers in a Big Supermarket. It collects data from at least 6 Transactional systems, i.e 6 data sources.

Considering only the order management reporting module of the database

---

The supermarket is right now a Organization with a company so we have a company_code
The supermarket has right now 1500 stores so we have a store_code The supermarket operates in 4 countries so we have a country_code We have an order_code
We have a supplier_code
We have an ordering_date

All 6 codes make up the Primary Key for the Order Table The child table of this Order Table (Order details, line by line) is made up of 6 codes plus the line_code

In this database there are quite a few modules which works the same way, composite natural keys to make up the PK. There are a couple of tables whose PK are over 10 columns.

My question is if I wanna use Surrogate Keys how can I make to the rest of world know which key is their parent? How do I publish the Surrogate to the rest of the tables?

--

http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l Received on Tue Jun 20 2006 - 05:31:47 CDT