If I have 2 accounts table: saving account and overdraft account, and then I have the table transaction in which column "from_account" can only have value equal to either saving account ID or overdraft account ID, how should I set the foreign key constraint? Is there any better schema design as the saving&overdraft account ID can collide.
Im using mysql btw :)
Thanx
A better schema design would be to have two distinct columns in the transaction table: One referencing the saving account table and the other referencing overdraft account table. Of course, these columns should be nullable and only one of them will point to an actual row in the other tables. But with this design you can enforce referential integrity constraints.
Another option would be to merge the two account tables into one, especially if they have many similar columns.
You can define an additional column ACCOUNT_TYPE and set a UNIQUE CONSTRAINT combining the FROM_ACCOUNT and the ACCOUNT_TYPE columns. You can also add a CHECK CONSTRAINT to the ACCOUNT_TYPE to limit its values to i.e 1,2.
Or you define one column for each referenced table plus a CHECK CONSTRAINT to ensure you never fill both at the same time.
And finally, consider merging both account tables, if there is no much difference between them.
Related
I am in a situation where i have to store key -> value pairs in a table which signifies users who have voted certain products.
UserId ProductID
1 2345
1 1786
6 657
2 1254
1 2187
As you can see that userId keeps on repeating and so can productId. I wanted to know what can be the best way to represent this data. Also is there a necessity of using primary key in here. I've searched a lot but am not able to find the exact specification about my problem. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
If you want to enforce that a given user can vote for a given product at most once, create a unique constraint over both columns:
ALTER TABLE mytable ADD UNIQUE INDEX (UserId, ProductID);
Although you can use these two columns together as a key, your app code is often simpler if you define a separate, typically auto increment, key column, but the decision to do this depends on which app code language/library you use.
If you have any tables that hold a foreign key reference to this table, and you intend to use referential integrity, those tables and the SQL used to define the relationship will also be simpler if you create a separate key column - you just end up carting multiple columns around instead of just one.
I want to have a lookup table that links two of the same things to eachother. Say I have a 'Person' table and I want to lookup the relationship between two people. I'll have column one of the lookup be 'PersonId1' and column two be 'PersonId2' and the third column be 'Relationship'. Since the relationship goes both ways I don't need to have duplicate records with the PlayerId's switched. Is there any way to make mysql enforce uniqueness on PlayerId1 and PlayerId2 combinations regardless of which order they're in?
Does that make sense?
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: You could set up a trigger to swap the order of the two person ids if the second were smaller than the first, then write them, and use a composite key.
Even longer answer: Not all interpersonal relationships are commutative (not all relationships go both ways). What about the "Employee" or "Mother" relationships? Even the "Friend" relationship, which is presumably peer-to-peer, might be better represented if you had separate rows saying A is B's Friend and B is A's Friend. So maybe you want a three-field composite key on this table.
You mean you want to have a unique row record from PersonID1 and PersonID2 Column (regardless of the Relationship column)? If that so, you may use the Composite key (Multi column key).
Here's an example:
CREATE TABLE Person (
PersonId1 INT,
PersonId2 INT,
PRIMARY KEY (PersonId1, PersonId2)
)
+1 for composite pk. To prevent duplicate combinations, an extra varchar column with for example personid1+personid2 with a unique constraint on it may be a solution...
See also: person data model example
Two tables share a unique identifier 'id'. Both tables are meant to be joined by using 'id'.
Defining 'id' as an auto incrementing primary key in both tables may risk update inconsistencies.
Is there some general pattern to avoid such a situation or do I have to deal with updating table1 first and table2 by utilizing the last inserted id after (therefore not declaring id as auto inc in table2)?
First, if you use InnoDB table engine in MySQL you could use both transactions and foreign keys for data consistency.
Second, after the insert in the first table, you could get the last insert id (depending on the way you access the db) and use it as foreign key.
Eg
Table 1: Users: user_id, username
Table 2: User_Profiles: user_id, name, phone
In User_Profiles you don't need to define user_id as auto increment, but first insert a record in Users table and use the user_id for the User_Profiles record. If you do this in transaction, the Users record won't be seen outside of the transaction connection until it's completed, this way you guarantee that even if something bad happens after you insert the user, but before you have inserted the profile - there won't be messed up data.
You could also define that the user_id column in User_Profiles table is foreign key of Users table thus if someone deletes a record from the Users table, the database would automatically delete the one in User_Profiles. There are many other options - read more about that.
There is no problem with same column name 'id' in any number of tables.
Several persistence layer frameworks do it same way.
Just use aliases in your SQL to distinct your tables accordingly.
do I have to deal with updating table1 first and table2 by utilizing the last inserted id after (therefore not declaring id as auto inc in table2)?
Yes. And make id a foreign key so it can only exist in table2 if it already exists in table1.
Yes you do, and remember to wrap the operation in a transaction.
I have a table which contains two type of data, either for Company or Employee.
Identifying that data by either 'C' or 'E' & a column storing primary key of it.
So how can I give foreign key depending on data contained & maintain referential integrity dynamically.
id | referenceid | documenttype
-------------------------------
1 | 12 | E
2 | 7 | C
Now row with id 1 should reference Employee table with pk 12 & row with id 2 should reference Company table with pk 7.
Otherwise I have to make two different tables for both.
Is there any other way to accomplish it.
If you really want to do this, you can have two nullable columns one for CompanyId and one for EmployeeId that act as foreign keys.
But I would rather you to try and review the database schema design.
It would be better to normalize the table - Creating separate tables for Company and Employee. You would also get better performance after normalization. Sincec the Company and Employee are separate entities, its better not to overlap them.
Personally, i would go with the two different table option.
Employee / Company seem to be distinct enough for me not to want to store their data together.
That will make the foreign key references also straight forward.
However, if you do want to still store it in one table, one way of maintaining the referential integrity would be through a trigger.
Have an Insert / Update trigger that checks the appropriate value in Company Master / Employee master depending on the value of column containing 'C' / 'E'
Personally, i would prefer avoiding such logic as triggers are notoriously hard to debug.
I have the following 2 tables in MySQL:
Customer(Id, Firstname, Lastname...)
Bonus(Id, CustomerId, Value, ...)
The relation is One-To-One, every customer has only one bonus.(the CustomerId is unique in the Bonus Table)
Q: Should I drop the Id column of the Bonus table?
(I want to know why or why not)
I would remove the Bonus.Id coulmn and make Bonus.CustomerId the PK. Doing this will remove the need to have a unique constraint on the Bonus.CustomerId column, since it will now be a PK. Anyone looking at the table will see the one-to-one more clearly without the Bonus.Id coulmn. You won't need an index on Bonus.CustomerId, the PK index will be all you need, so less disk space and memory cache wasted. Also, if you ever need a FK to the Bonus table, you you would use the CustomerId value (the new PK), which can be used to get back to Customer or Bonus tables, not just Bonus.
I assume it isn't actually a true one-to-one because you could presumably have a Customer without a bonus row. SQL-style foreign key constraints are always optional on the referencing side of any relationship.
I agree the Bonus.Id column appears to be completely redundant.
if it's ono-to-one, why is there any extra table? you could instead put "bonusvalue" into your customer table.
(else: yes, you can drop the id of the bonus-table, the customer-id is the primary key and the "id" is completely redundant)