It uniquely identies the row of data in the database, as far as I am aware
it is comprised of
the page within the database || the offset of the the data within the page.

If you select it is guarenteed for the life of the transaction, but may
change over time, e.g. as page splits occur / inserts etc.

Because it is a direct map to the page and offset and is DB Unique, it is a
very fast way of returning to a record in a database. I think that it is
also stored in the index to allow the index navigation to quickly goto (1
hop) to the data.

JAC.


"Duilio Foschi" <dedalus@...> wrote in message
news:3.0.1.32.20020121114920.0068dd20@......

> what is the db_key field that I often find at the end of a table structure

?

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