Re: Primary Keys optional?

Stephen,

I come down on the side of "every table will have a primary key unless you can provide a good reason not to". That is what I try to enforce for new tables. Sometimes the PK is enforced with another unique index. I have worked with applications that used unique keys instead of PK.

Dennis Williams

On 8/17/06, Stephen Andert <andert_at_gmail.com> wrote:
>
> OK, just starting a new job with more design than I have done in a
> while. Looking into things, I have been noticing that many tables
> have no PK. Some have a unique index, but not all.
>
> When I pointed this out to folks (developers) they shrugged and said
> "if you need a PK, then create one".
>
> So my questions are:
>
> 1. Is it considered acceptable to have a unique index instead of a pk?
>
> 2. What are the circumstances when a table might be allowed to exist
> without any sort of primary key or unique index? (i.e. temp table,
> static small table, etc)
>
> Thanks In Advance
>
> --
> Stephen Andert
> http://spaces.msn.com/andert-news/
> --
> http://www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l
>
>
>

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