On Tue, 2006-11-28 at 09:29 +0900, Michael Glaesemann wrote: > On Nov 28, 2006, at 9:02 , Joshua D. Drake wrote: > > > On Mon, 2006-11-27 at 17:31 -0600, John McCawley wrote: > >> I promise I'm not trying to be a pain in the butt ;) Do you then use > >> your serial id as your foreign key in other tables, or the > >> firstname/lastname primary key? > > > > Now that is a good question. I would use the id, but that is not > > technically proper :). > > If you have both a surrogate key (the serial column) as well as a > natural key (e.g., the (first_name, last_name) composite key), what > difference does it make? You can get to the first_name, last_name > data via a join on the surrogate key. The point is easy data management... SELECT * FROM names; UPDATE names set first_name = 'foo' WHERE id = 6 vs SELECT * FROM names; UPDATE names set first_name = 'foo' WHERE first_name = 'Joshua' AND last_name = 'Drake'; Or did I misunderstand your question? Joshua D. Drake > > I'm currently loosely in the surrogate key + natural key camp. One > advantage of this is that if there *is* a change to the natural key, > it can be changed in one table rather than cascading throughout the > database schema. > > Michael Glaesemann > grzm seespotcode net > > (Can we talk about NULL next? :P) > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/faq > -- === The PostgreSQL Company: Command Prompt, Inc. === Sales/Support: +1.503.667.4564 || 24x7/Emergency: +1.800.492.2240 Providing the most comprehensive PostgreSQL solutions since 1997 http://www.commandprompt.com/ Donate to the PostgreSQL Project: http://www.postgresql.org/about/donate
