Let’s return to our example of the magazine subscriptions. Recall that we had three tables: orders, subscriptions, and customers.
Each of these tables has a column that uniquely identifies each row of that table:
order_idfororderssubscription_idforsubscriptionscustomer_idforcustomers
These special columns are called primary keys.
Primary keys have a few requirements:
- None of the values can be
NULL. - Each value must be unique (i.e., you can’t have two customers with the same
customer_idin thecustomerstable). - A table can not have more than one primary key column.
Let’s reexamine the orders table:
| order_id | customer_id | subscription_id | purchase_date |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 2017-01-01 |
| 2 | 2 | 2 | 2017-01-01 |
| 3 | 3 | 1 | 2017-01-01 |
Note that customer_id (the primary key for customers) and subscription_id (the primary key for subscriptions) both appear in this.
When the primary key for one table appears in a different table, it is called a foreign key.
So customer_id is a primary key when it appears in customers, but a foreign key when it appears in orders.
In this example, our primary keys all had somewhat descriptive names. Generally, the primary key will just be called id. Foreign keys will have more descriptive names.
Why is this important? The most common types of joins will be joining a foreign key from one table with the primary key from another table. For instance, when we join orders and customers, we join on customer_id, which is a foreign key in orders and the primary key in customers.
Instructions
Suppose Columbia University has two tables in their database:
- The
classestable contains information on the classes that the school offers. Its primary key isid. - The
studentstable contains information on all students in the school. Its primary key isid. It contains the foreign keyclass_id, which corresponds to the primary key ofclasses.
Perform an inner join of classes and students using the primary and foreign keys described above, and select all the columns.