From: Date: December 22 2005 5:49am
Subject: Re: Are primary keys essential?
List-Archive: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/193156
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----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Harvard" <james.lists.tech@stripped>
To: <mysql@stripped>
Sent: Wednesday, December 21, 2005 9:08 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?

Well, if this is _just_ summary data, I suppose it's okay to get along 
without PKs. But I've never had much to do with the theory and practice of 
data warehouses beyond a few very basic concepts so I wouldn't take that to 
the bank....

Rhino





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