Lots of people generate key values like this. Actually, I ALWAYS use
surrogate keys (and use UNIQUE constraints for other stuff). I like being
able to do select/update statements with a single key, space is not really a
problem nowadays, its cheap!

--
Martijn Tonies
InterBase Workbench - the developer tool for InterBase and Firebird
http://www.interbaseworkbench.com

Upscene Productions
http://www.upscene.com

"This is an object-oriented system.
If we change anything, the users object."



""Nico Callewaert"" <nico.callewaert@...> wrote in message
news:006401c11148$83647180$1b96e0d5@......

> Hi,
>
> I have a little problem. My customer wants a table with his

articles (approximatly 100.000 records). The problem is : for some
articles , there is no article number. I was planning to design a table
with Article_ID as the primary key. So it won't work anymore. Now, I
guess I have to use a surrogate key, with numbers generated by a generator.
Isn't that a little bit wasted space ? That field doesn't have really a
meaning, but I think it's the only way do do it ?

>
> Thanks, Nico
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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