Using description as primary key

[Frank Situmorang]

Hello,

Is it material description enough as a primary key?, we are not in the stage
of using catalog as a material coding, what would be the constraints if we
use description as a primary key, than we will make an automatic pop up to
show the lowest material price from each supplier.

Thanks in advance,

Frank

 

[scubadiver]

The problem with using a description as a primary key rather than a number is
that what happens if you have the same description for more than one
supplier? A primary key has to be unique.

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[Stefan Hoffmann]

hi Frank,

Is it material description enough as a primary key?

In database theory this can be, but your material description must be a
candidate key. Thus means, is it sufficent to identify a single data
row? Does it not depend on any other data?

Despite that, it has some disadvantages, as scuba already pointed out.

Using a surrogat key, e.g. an autoincrement, will save you unnecessary
updates, even if they can be maintained be the referential integrity
settings.

Also some operations will be slower, when using a text key.

mfG
--> stefan <--