Re: How do I alter an existing column and add a foreign key which is a Primary key to a table?

From: Holger Jakobs <holger(at)jakobs(dot)com>
To: pgsql-admin(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org,Karen Goh <karenworld(at)yahoo(dot)com>
Subject: Re: How do I alter an existing column and add a foreign key which is a Primary key to a table?
Date: 2019-07-21 07:28:04
Message-ID: 5CE41E80-274A-44DA-9553-E2DCA260F751@jakobs.com
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-admin pgsql-sql

Am 21. Juli 2019 02:58:05 MESZ schrieb Karen Goh <karenworld(at)yahoo(dot)com>:
>Hi all,
>
>With PG4Admin, I am lost.

Since pgadmin4 is just a frontend, you're not "lost with pgadmin4", but maybe with postgresql.

>I realised now that the keys are not created and perhaps that is why
>the join query is not working out.

Creating a foreign key doesn't magically create the necessary keys for it.

>Please let me know what is the correct way to alter a column in a table
>to have foreign key to a tutor_id which is also the primary key of that
>table.
>
>So, meaning I need to create a foreign key as well as primary key for
>tutor_id.
>
>So far, this is what I have attempted but it is not working.
>ALTER TABLE tutor_subject
> ADD CONSTRAINT tutor_subject_pk
> PRIMARY KEY (tutor_id)
> ADD CONSTRAINT tutor_subject_fk
> FOREIGN KEY (tutor_id)

This looks like a 1:1 relationship which is to be avoided.

One ALTER TABLE command either adds a primary or a foreign key. There is no FK without the keyword REFERENCES.

FK relationships help in keeping the data consistent, but they are totally unrelated to/useless for SELECT statements and their JOIN operations. This is a common misconception.

Regards,

Holger

--
Holger Jakobs, Bergisch Gladbach
+49 178 9759012
- sent from mobile, therefore short -

In response to

Responses

Browse pgsql-admin by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Karen Goh 2019-07-21 13:53:58 Re: How do I alter an existing column and add a foreign key which is a Primary key to a table?
Previous Message Avin Kavish 2019-07-21 05:50:35 Re: Database.Schema.Table

Browse pgsql-sql by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Karen Goh 2019-07-21 13:53:58 Re: How do I alter an existing column and add a foreign key which is a Primary key to a table?
Previous Message David G. Johnston 2019-07-21 02:48:13 Re: How do I alter an existing column and add a foreign key which is a Primary key to a table?