Primary Key Definition

Definition: The primary key of a relational table uniquely identifies each record in the table. It can either be a normal attribute that is guaranteed to be unique (such as Social Security Number in a table with no more than one record per person) or it can be generated by the DBMS (such as a globally unique identifier, or GUID, in Microsoft SQL Server). Primary keys may consist of a single attribute or multiple attributes in combination. Imagine we have a student records database that contains three tables. The first table, STUDENTS, contains a record for each student at the university. The second table, CLASSES, contains a record for each class session offered. The third table, ENROLLMENT, contains student enrollment records (e.g. each record represents a single student enrolling in a single course). There would be multiple records for each student (representing all the classes that student is enrolled in) and multiple records for each class session (representing all the students enrolled in that class). A student's unique student ID number would be a good choice for a primary key in the STUDENTS table. The student's first and last name would not be a good choice, as there is always the chance that more than one student might have the same name.

PRIMARY KEY 约束

表通常具有包含唯一标识表中每一行的值的一列或一组列。这样的一列或多列称为表的主键 (PK)，用于强制表的实体完整性。在创建或修改表时，您可以通过定义 PRIMARY KEY 约束来创建主键。

一个表只能有一个 PRIMARY KEY 约束，并且 PRIMARY KEY 约束中的列不能接受空值。由于 PRIMARY KEY 约束可保证数据的唯一性，因此经常对标识列定义这种约束。