What is the purpose of constraint naming

by

Here’s some pretty basic reasons.

(1) If a query (insert, update, delete) violates a constraint, SQL will generate an error message that will contain the constraint name. If the constraint name is clear and descriptive, the error message will be easier to understand; if the constraint name is a random guid-based name, it’s a lot less clear. Particulary for end-users, who will (ok, might) phone you up and ask what “FK__B__B_COL1__75435199” means.

(2) If a constraint needs to be modified in the future (yes, it happens), it’s very hard to do if you don’t know what it’s named. (ALTER TABLE MyTable drop CONSTRAINT um…) And if you create more than one instance of the database “from scratch” and use system-generated default names, no two names will ever match.

(3) If the person who gets to support your code (aka a DBA) has to waste a lot of pointless time dealing with case (1) or case (2) at 3am on Sunday, they’re quite probably in a position to identify where the code came from and be able to react accordingly.

More Related Contents:

  1. NOT NULL constraint over a set of columns
  2. Deferrable Constraints in SQL Server
  3. Continuing a transaction after primary key violation error
  4. sql unique constraint on a 2 columns combination
  5. SQL Data models
  6. Solutions for INSERT OR UPDATE on SQL Server
  7. How to randomly select rows in SQL?
  8. What’s the difference between TRUNCATE and DELETE in SQL
  9. SQL best practice to deal with default sort order
  10. How to update selected rows with values from a CSV file in Postgres?
  11. How can I get column names from a table in Oracle?
  12. How Can I use “Date” Datatype in sql server?
  13. single fixed table with multiple columns vs flexible abstract tables
  14. How can I send email from PostgreSQL trigger?
  15. How to design a database for User Defined Fields?
  16. How to delete Duplicates in MySQL table
  17. Logging ALL Queries on a SQL Server 2008 Express Database?
  18. MS SQL “ON DELETE CASCADE” multiple foreign keys pointing to the same table?
  19. Best database field type for a URL
  20. What is causing Foreign Key Mismatch error?
  21. MySQL – how to front pad zip code with “0”?
  22. Display names of all constraints for a table in Oracle SQL
  23. sqlite select with condition on date
  24. How can I implement SQL INTERSECT and MINUS operations in MS Access
  25. Postgres Error: More than one row returned by a subquery used as an expression
  26. Does ‘Select’ always order by primary key?
  27. How do I create and query linked database servers in SQL Server?
  28. Functions vs Stored Procedures
  29. Temporal database design, with a twist (live vs draft rows)
  30. Executing SQL query on multiple databases

Leave a Comment