Home Forums Database Design Design Ideas and Questions Is Having Primary key on a table essential? RE: Is Having Primary key on a table essential?

  • May 2, 2013 at 8:35 pm

    #1612068

    Aspet Golestanian Namagerdi (5/2/2013)

    Hi everyone

    We are using Sql Server 2008 and we have a log table which has one clustered index(on creationdate, that can be duplicate) and two non clustered index.This table is being used for logging and being inserted and updated frequently.Is it neccessary to create a primary key(new identity column) on this table?and if we do not create any,will that cause any problem?

    Thanks

    No, it's not essential to have a PK but very beneficial. And for a log table, it should be on the CreationDate and an IDENTITY column AND it should be the clustered index. That way the table has very little chance of becoming fragmented and your clustered index will be UNIQUE which will cause great benefit for any index because the clustered index becomes a part of every non-clustered index.

    As a sidebar, you're saying this table is being usef for logging. Why then would this table ever be made to suffer and UPDATE? Logs are logs and should never see an UPDATE ever.

    --Jeff Moden

    RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
    First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
    ________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

    Change is inevitable... Change for the better is not.

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