Describe a primary key, candidate key, secondary key, foreign key, and a combination key. Use your imagination to provide an example of each key that is not in the textbook.

What will be an ideal response?


A primary key is the field or combination of fields that uniquely and minimally identifies a single member of an entity. A candidate key is a field or combination of fields that could serve as a primary key; only one of the candidate keys can be designated as the primary key. A secondary key is a field or combination of fields that serves as a basis for some type of retrieval or processing. A foreign key is a field or combination of fields whose value must match a primary key value in some other table or file.
Students should be able to suggest any number of “keys” from their personal experience. This might be a good team task, with a competitive element thrown in.

Computer Science & Information Technology

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What will be an ideal response?

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