CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sql
cybel
cybel

Reputation: 391

SQL: Foreign key references a composite primary key

I'm new to SQL and there are a lot of things going on that I still don't seem to quite understand. I have the following table 

CREATE TABLE Person 
(
    First_Name varchar(20) NOT NULL,
    Name varchar(20) NOT NULL,
    Address varchar(50) NOT NULL,

    PRIMARY KEY (First_Name, Name, Address)
);

I know want to create another table that has the primary key from the table Person as foreign key and also as primary key:

CREATE TABLE Purchase 
(
    No_Installments int,
    Rate int,
    Person varchar(50) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,

    CONSTRAINT PFK 
        FOREIGN KEY (Person) REFERENCES Person (First_Name, Name, Address)
);

For some reason this doesn't work and I get an error every time. I've already looked up the other threads here on stackoverflow, but they don't really seem to help me. What am I doing wrong?

Upvotes: 8

Views: 16860

Answers (3)

Brad Parker
Brad Parker

Reputation: 111

You probably want to assign a unique ID to each person, not relying on their name to be unique or for an address to be required. That ID will be your Primary key and foreign key. Your purchase table should also have its own id for its primary key -- otherwise because primary keys must be unique, each person can only have one purchase.

CREATE TABLE Person (
   id serial NOT NULL,
   First_Name varchar(20) NOT NULL,
   Name varchar(20) NOT NULL,
   Address varchar(50) NOT NULL,
   PRIMARY KEY (id));

CREATE TABLE Purchase (
   id serial NOT NULL,
   No_Installments int,
   Rate int,
   Person int NOT NULL,
   FOREIGN KEY (Person) REFERENCES Person (id), 
   PRIMARY KEY (id));

Upvotes: 0

Gordon Linoff
Gordon Linoff

Reputation: 1269793

Have an integer primary key, using identity, auto_increment, serial or whatever for your database:

CREATE TABLE Person (
    PersonId int identity PRIMARY KEY
    First_Name varchar(20) NOT NULL,
    Name varchar(20) NOT NULL,
    Address varchar(50) NOT NULL,
    CONSTRAINT unq_person_3 UNIQUE (First_Name, Name, Address)
);

Then use the identity column for the reference:

CREATE TABLE Purchase (
    PurchaseId int identity PRIMARY KEY,
    No_Installments int,
    Rate int,
    PersonId int,
    CONSTRAINT PFK 
        FOREIGN KEY (PersonId) REFERENCES Person (PersonId)
);

Notes:

  • You really don't want to have to deal with a composite primary key. Have you thought about what the joins will look like?
  • You don't want a primary key where the values are subject to change. What happens when someone changes his/her name? When someone moves?
  • Person should not be the primary key in Purchases. Are you only allowing someone to make one purchase?
  • As noted initially, how you generate such a column varies by database; identity happens to be the way that SQL Server does this.

Upvotes: 6

marc_s
marc_s

Reputation: 754488

If you have a compound PK made up from three columns, then any child table that wants to establish a foreign key relationship must ALSO have all those 3 columns and use all 3 columns to establish the FK relationship.

FK-PK relationship is an all or nothing proposal - you cannot reference only parts of a primary key - either you reference all columns - or you don't reference.

CREATE TABLE Purchase 
(
    No_Installments int,
    Rate int,

    Person varchar(50) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,

    First_Name varchar(20) NOT NULL,
    Name varchar(20) NOT NULL,
    Address varchar(50) NOT NULL,

    CONSTRAINT PFK 
        FOREIGN KEY (First_Name, Name, Address) 
        REFERENCES Person (First_Name, Name, Address)
);

Upvotes: 19

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