Re: Are primary keys essential?

[Kenneth Wagner]

Hi James,

If the tables you use have primary keys that _YOU_ don't need or use then, 
for you, they are not essential.

I do have a question, though. You are working with SQL tables, aren't you? 
And from wherever they came from or exist, I presume from your reply that 
you don't need the PKs.

The only help I can envisage for you is if you want to look at the tables in 
PK order for some reason.

Does your app create tables from the "large amouns of data?" If you report 
from the tables your app creates then you have no need at all for the PKs. 
Depends how you want the report data to appear.

On the other hand, the "large amounts of data" db may need or want those 
PKs.

Hope this makes sense,

Ken


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Harvard" <james.lists.tech@stripped>
To: <mysql@stripped>
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 8:08 PM
Subject: Re: Are primary keys essential?


> Thanks the on & off-list replies, but I obviously didn't explain my 
> situation very well!
>
> My app is essentially creating summary reports from large amounts of data. 
> It is _not_ doing the actual data warehousing. It's international trade 
> data.
>
> The data tables contain foreign keys for stuff like destination country, 
> trade commodity category etc., but they are _not_ themselves referenced by 
> any other table. Therefore I have not yet found, nor do I envisage 
> finding, any use for an arbitrary auto_increment primary key. So why 
> would/might I need a PK at all?
>
> TIA,
> James Harvard
>
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