Agreed. The only point I was making that ( particularly for anyone new to the world of relational databases ) it is advisable to always try and look for data in each record that uniquely identifies the row, before resorting to automatic numbered keys. For example using a unique 8 digit user id made up from the users name ( such as DANSTENN for my name ) as the primary key would have many advantages over a numeric rowid - speed basically. One can then sort by the userid, serach by userid, and in many queries migh only need to access the primary index- thus speeding things immensely.
Off topic in a way but worth reiterating (imo) On 16/10/06 23:44, "Norman Palardy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Many times normalizaton practices would dictate that you have a > possibly meaningless unique key. > Sometimes there is data that is unique per person that makes a nice > key (social insurance number, employee number, etc) > But sometimes there is no such candidate key and you have to invent one > > In many databases rowid is a nice identifier for this purpose as it > has no implicit meaning > > And, that's the context in which this whole thread started. SQLIte > has a rowid, but, buy default it is NOT a great candidate because > SQLite does not insure that row id's are unique primary autoincrement > columns. However, as Marco pointed out IF you define a key with those > attributes then you will have one in you schema. > > That's all I was suggesting; that you explicitly define such a key > and not assume that one will be provided or created for you by the > database engine. > > _______________________________________________ > Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: > <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> > > Search the archives of this list here: > <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html> > _______________________________________________ Unsubscribe or switch delivery mode: <http://www.realsoftware.com/support/listmanager/> Search the archives of this list here: <http://support.realsoftware.com/listarchives/lists.html>
