Can a table have multiple primary indexes in progress open edge.
No - each table (and temp-table) has one and only one primary index.
This is also true for tables with "no" indexes defined for it - the db engine will make an index (based on recid?) for tables like that.
There is nothing very special about the designation "primary". It is a potential tie-breaker used when other index selection rules result in multiple possible index choices -- if everything else is equal the "primary" index will be used. It is also the default index used when various utilities are run. But beyond that there is no magic associated with the "primary" attribute.
No. Each table can have only one primary index.
A table can have multiple unique indexes, though. A primary index usually is (and should be) unique, but this is not enforced.
(Just in case there is confusion about primary and unique indexes.)
Related
Firstly, I have a table in database USERS with almost 30 Million records in it. I have different indices for each column. But some of the column have only 2 to 3 non null values while others are Null but still their index size is 847 MB a little less than the one index that contain unique value for each row.
Can anyone know why is it like this?
Secondly, in PostgreSQL we have a index for primary key index for each column by default what if we delete that index what will be the consequences?
What that index is really use for?
As i'm searching based on values in other columns only will it be safe to delete index for primary key?
NULL values are stored in indexes just like all other values, so the first part is not surprising.
You cannot delete the primary key index, what you could do is drop the primary key constraint. But then you cannot be certain that no duplicate rows get added to the table. If you think that is no problem, look at the many questions asking for help with exactly that problem.
Every table should have a primary key.
But it might be a good idea to get rid of some other indexes if you don't need them.
There is nothing called primary key index, seems to be you are talking about unique index.
First of all you need to understand the difference between primary key and index. You can have only one primary key in a table. Primary key would be your unique identifier of each column and does not allow nulls. Index is used to speed up your fetching process on particular column and you can have one null if it is unique index. Deleting unique index in your table will not impact any thing apart from performance. Its your way of design to have index or not
On Postgres, a unique index is automatically created for primary key columns. From the docs,
When an index is declared unique, multiple table rows with equal
indexed values are not allowed. Null values are not considered equal.
A multicolumn unique index will only reject cases where all indexed
columns are equal in multiple rows.
From my understanding, it seems like this index only checks uniqueness and isn't actually present for faster access when querying by primary key id's. Does this mean that this index structure doesn't consist of a sorted table (or a tree) for the primary key column? Is this correct?
In theory a unique or primary key constraint could be enforced without the presence of an index, but it would be a painful process. The index is mainly there for performance purposes.
However some databases (eg Oracle) allow a unique or primary key constraint to be supported by a non-unique index. Primarily this allows the enforcement of the constraint to be deferred until the end of a transaction, so lack of uniqueness can be permitted temporarily during a transaction, but also allows indexes to be built in parallel and with the constraint then defined as a secondary step.
Also, I'm not sure how the internals work on a PostgreSQL btree index, but all Oracle btree's are internally declared to be unique either:
on the key column(s), for an index that is intended to be UNIQUE, or
on the key column(s) plus the indexed row's ROWID, for a non-unique index.
Quite the contrary, The index is created in order to allow faster access - mainly to check for duplicates when a new record is inserted but can also be used by other queries against PK columns. The best structure for uk indexes is a btree because during the insert the index is created - If the rdbms detects collision in the leaf he will raise a unique constraint violation.
This is kind of a general DB design question. If one has an associative entity table, i.e. a cross-reference, containing records that basically just consist of two FK references, should it be indexed in some way? Is it necessary to explicitly index that table, since the PKs in the associated tables are already indexed by definition? If one should index it, should it be a combination index, consisting of the two FK fields together?
Indexes on the referenced pk columns in the other tables do not cover it.
By defining the two fk columns as composite primary key of the "associative entity" table (as you should in most cases - provided that associations are unique), you implicitly create a multi-column index.
That covers all queries involving both or the first columns optimally.
It also covers queries on the second column, but in a less effective way.
If you have important queries involving just the second column, create an additional index on that one, too.
Read all the details about the topic at this related question on dba.SE.
Or this question on SO, also covering this topic.
Suppose your associative table has a schema such as:
CREATE TABLE Association
(
ReferenceA INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES TableA CONSTRAINT FK1_Association,
ReferenceB INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES TableB CONSTRAINT FK2_Association,
PRIMARY KEY(ReferenceA, ReferenceB) CONSTRAINT PK_Association
);
The chances are that your DBMS will automatically create some indexes.
Some DBMS will create an index for each of the two foreign keys and also a unique index for the primary key. This is slightly wasteful since the PK index could be used for accessing ReferenceA too.
Ideally, there will be just two indexes: the PK (unique) index and the (duplicates allowed) FK index for ReferenceB, assuming that the PK index has ReferenceA as the first column.
If a DBMS does not automatically create indexes to enforce the referential integrity constraints, you'll want to create the RI or FK duplicates-allowed index. If it doesn't automatically create an index to enforce the PK constraint, you'll want to create that unique index too. The upside is that you'll only create the indexes for the ideal case.
Depending on your DBMS, you might find it more effective to create the table without the constraints, then to add the indexes, and then to add the constraints (which will then use the indexes you created). Things like fragmentation schemes can also factor into this; I ignored them above.
The concept remains simple — you want two indexes in total, one to enforce uniqueness on both columns and provide fast access on the leading column, and a non-unique or duplicates-allowed index on the trailing column.
Do the clustered and non-clustered indexes both work on B-Tree? I read that clustered indexes affect the way how the data is physically stored in table whereas with non-clustered indexes a separate copy of the column is created and that is stored in sorted order. Also, Sql Server creates clustered indexes on primary key by default.
Does that mean :
1) Non clustered indexes occupy more space than clustered indexes since a separate copy of column is stored in non clustered?
2) How does the clustered and non clustered index work when we have primary key based on two columns say.. (StudentName,Marks)?
3) Are there only 2 types of indexes? If so, then what are bitmap indexes? I can't seem to find any such index type in Sql Server Management Studio but in my datawarehousing book all these types are mentioned.
4) Is creating clustered or non-clustered index on primary key effecient?
5) Suppose we create clustered index on name i.e data is physically stored in sorted order name wise then a new record is created. How will the new record find it's place in table?
Thanks in advance :)
Indexes are structures stored separately from the actual datapages and simply contain pointers to the datapages. In SQL Server indexes are B-Trees.
Clustered indexes sort and store the datapages in the table according to the columns defined for the index. In SQL Server 2005 you can add additional columns to an index so it should not be a problem when you have composite primary keys. You can think of a clustered index like a set of filing cabinets with folders. In the first draw you have documents starting with A and in the first folder of that draw you may have documents starting from AA to AC and so on. To search for "Spider" then, you can jump straight to the S draw and look for the folder containing "SP" and quickly find what you are looking for. But it is obvious that if you sort all documents physically by one index then you cannot physically sort the same set of documents by another index. Hence, only one clustered index per table.
A Non Clustered index is a separate structure much like the table of contents or the index at the back of a book. So I think I have only answered some of your questions specifically:
Yes the index does occupy space but not as much as the original table. That is why you must choose your indexes carefully. There is also a small performance hit for update operations since the index has to be maintained.
Your book will mention all the theoretical types of indexes. Bitmap indexes are useful in data warehousing applications or for data that has a few distinct values like days of the week etc. So they are not generally used in your basic RDBMS. I know that Oracle has some implementations but I don't know much about that.
I think that efficiency of an index is determined by how the field is used. It is expected that the majority of the data scanning in your table will be done on the primary key then an index on the primary key makes sense. You usually add indexes to columns that appear in the where clause or the join condition of your queries.
On insert the index has to be maintained, so there is a little extra work that has to be done by the system to rearrange things a bit.
I have a doubt that if my table do n't have any constraint like Primary Key,Foreign key,Unique key etc. then can i create the clustered index on table and clustered index can have the douplicate records ?
My 2nd question is where should we exectly use the non clustered index and when it is useful and benificial to create in table?
My 3rd question is How can we create the 249 non clustered index in a table .Is it the meaning, Creating the non clustered index on 249 columns ?
Can you anyone help me to remove my confusion in this.
First, the definition of a clustered index is that it is physical ordering of data on the disk. Every time you do an insert into that table, the new record will be placed on the physical disk in its order based on its value in the clustered index column. Because it is the physical location on the disk, it is (A) the most rapidly accessible column in the table but (B) only possible to define a single clustered index per table. Which column (or columns) you use as the clustered index depend on the data itself and its use. Primary keys are typically the clustered index, especially if the primary key is sequential (e.g. an integer that increments automatically with each insert). This will provide the fastest insert/update/delete functionality. If you are more interested in performing reads (select * from table), you may want to cluster on a Date column, as most queries have either a date in the where clause, the group by clause or both.
Second, clustered indexes (at least in the DB's I know) need not be unique (they CAN have duplicates). Constraining the column to be unique is separate matter. If the clustered index is a primary key its uniqueness is a function of being a primary key.
Third, I can't follow you questions concerning 249 columns. A non-clustered index is basically a tool for accelerating queries at the expense of extra disk space. It's hard to think of a case where creating an index on each column is necessary. If you want a quick rule of thumb...
Write a query using your table.
If a column is required to do a join, index it.
If a column is used in a where column, index it.
Remember all the indexes are doing for you is speeding up your queries. If queries run fast, don't worry about them.
This is just a thumbnail sketch of a large topic. There are tons of more informative/comprehensive resources on this matter, and some depend on the database system ... just google it.