• CELKO (8/22/2014)


    What do you use for the PK on lookup tables?

    I use the encoding that is being used. The IDENTITY property (not a column!) is the count of insertion attempts that was made to that disk on that one machine.

    Example: look up table for two-letter state codes using the two letter code as PK. What would IDENTITY mean? How would it improve anything?

    Of course for states I would use the code.

    How about something like Coupon types? What would you use there? I am certainly not going to use the description of the type (PercentageDiscount, FreeShipping, BOGO, etc).

    _______________________________________________________________

    Need help? Help us help you.

    Read the article at http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Best+Practices/61537/ for best practices on asking questions.

    Need to split a string? Try Jeff Modens splitter http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Tally+Table/72993/.

    Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 1 – Converting Rows to Columns - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/T-SQL/63681/
    Cross Tabs and Pivots, Part 2 - Dynamic Cross Tabs - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/Crosstab/65048/
    Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 1) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69953/
    Understanding and Using APPLY (Part 2) - http://www.sqlservercentral.com/articles/APPLY/69954/