Ok, so I did some googling because I wanted to know WHY it was 'best practice' to add a surrogate key to the table and why to rail against the idea of using 'natural keys' as primary keys.
I stumbled across perhaps the longest thread I have ever read completely, it starts in November 2001 and the last post was january 2007. I was tempted to post but thought better of it :p It references an article advocating the use of natural primary keys and produced the most entertaining rant and informative series of posts I have read in a long time. The rant starts at the end of page 2 and is by 'quazibubble' who later becomes QB after he gets banned. I think anyone considering using natural keys should read his rants, they are both entertainingly rude and contain the gems of wisdom that the likes of me need: http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=6136&whichpage=1 I think reading the article will make your mind up either way about the wisdom of not using 'auto increments' / surrogate pks (I realise they are not the same thing). Dominic -- Blog it up: http://fusion.dominicwatson.co.uk ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;160198600;22374440;w Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/message.cfm/messageid:296706 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Talk/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.4
