when a field or combination of fields cannot be made unique for each record, a contrived or "artificial" key must be used. Usually this is a random generated value (like GUIDs) or a monotonically ascendant value. It's used also by people who think that PKs should be based on generated fields that aren't part of the natural attributes of the data being modeled.
a code or number which is independent of the meaning of any of the other attributes in the table
a key that has no meaning other than uniquely identifying a row in the table
a key that is not part of the business data and is therefore arbitrary, but unique
a key which has no inherent meaning
an artificial or synthetic key that is used as a substitute for a natural key
a primary key composed of attributes that have no business meaning, but are created by IT personnel
a primary key that has been explicitly created and has no relationship with the naturally occurring data found within a table
a primary key which contains at least one surrogate attribute
a single immutable, non-intelligent identifier used to substitute for the natural key, especially (but not only) a compound natural key
a special attribute, which is added to a relation variable to identify specific tupels
a substitution for the natural primary key
a system generated to replace the actual key behind the covers where the user never sees it
a unique (Click link for more info and facts about primary key) primary key generated by the (Click link for more info and facts about
a unique, DBMS-supplied identifier used as the primary key of a relation
a unique identifier assigned to a entity in a dimension table
a unique identifier generated for each row in a given table
A unique identifier for a row within a database table. A surrogate (or candidate) key can be made up of one or more columns. By definition, every table must have at least one surrogate key (in which case it automatically becomes the primary key for a table), but it is possible for a table to have more than one surrogate key (in which case one of them must be designated as the primary key). Any surrogate key that is not the primary key is called an alternate key. table A data structure containing a collection of rows (or records) that have associated columns (or fields). It is the logical equivalent of a database file.
A surrogate key is a single-part, artificially established identifier for an entity. Surrogate key assignment is a special case of derived data - one where the primary key is derived. A common way of deriving surrogate key values is to assign integer values sequentially.
It has system-generated artificial primary key values, which allows to maintain historical records in the Data Warehouse more effectively.
system generated key with no business value. Usually implemented with database generated sequences.
A Surrogate key in a relational database is a key field (a unique identifier, either for a row in a table or for an object in the modelled world), which is not derived from application data in the database.