Database design + Table ids

Question

I have often heard that numerically increasing numbers make good ids for static data tables. This has never made much sense to me - I would rather have meaningful ids.

To give you an example: say I am maintaining CurrencyInfo in a table. For USD, should the row identifier be 1 or USD? What is the preferred practice and why?

Do please let me know your thoughts.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

2

The id that you are talking about is known as surrogate key. You can read more about it here.

To know their advantages/disadvantages over business keys, take a look here.

You can also take a look at this answer.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

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answered Jul 05 '11 at 09:03

MD Sayem Ahmed

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score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 05 '11 at 09:06

The unique identifier should NOT be something meaningful, it should be a unique identifier :) If your ID is meaningful NOW, it doesn't mean that it's meaningful later. Those things can always change..

So IMHO you should stick to a DBMS supported unique identifier. Those can be optimized etc..

Database design + Table ids

2 Answers2