Re: Advice on key design

On Wed, Jul 24, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Bèrto ëd Sèra <berto.d.sera@gmail.com> wrote:

> What would be the rationale behind the serial number?
>

The serial key, also named "surrogate key" is there for management
purposes. Imagine one day you find out your database design is wrong
and what was unique the day before is no more so, how can you find
your records?
The idea is to have a surrogate key to save you from real world
troubles, and then constraints to implement the database design.

I usually use this convention:
- primary surrogate keys named pk and defined as primary keys
- database design keys named _key and defined with a unique constraint.

Luca