[AccessD] OT: The Great Primary Debate

Stuart,

That's why I dumped autonumber and went with a Modified Julian Date PK field
for my date dimension table. It meets the three basic requirements for a PK:
not null, unique, and won't change. Plus, the MJD is trivially easy to
calculate from any date; you don't have to lookup the PK from the date
table.

I wrote a long, boring post on this some time ago, which elicited a
tremendous yawn from the AccessD community. This post is much shorter, and
thus should generate only a tiny yawn :-o

-Ken

-----Original Message-----
From: Stuart McLachlan [mailto:stuart at lexacorp.com.pg]
Sent: Monday, June 07, 2004 6:37 PM
To: Access Developers discussion and problemsolving
Subject: RE: [AccessD] OT: The Great Primary Debate

<snip>

In your data dimension table example, you are creating a meaningful field
SequentialDateNumber (which you are calling ID) and are using it in data
calculations.

Thr real question in this situation is not whether you use this natural key
as
a PK, but whether you have a PK in the table at all - which comes down to
the
sub-debate about "what is a PK and what is it used for" :-)


















--
Lexacorp Ltd
http://www.lexacorp.com.pg
Information Technology Consultancy, Software Development,System Support.