Re: SQL Identity column

Well - yes - you will need the Id of the row with that vendor id. The problem with vendor ids is, that you don't have much influence on them.

Of course you can write your new row into the child table without first "fetching" the parent id. Like in:

insert into child (parentid, vendorid, column1, ...)
select id, vendorid, 'Value', ...
from parent where vendorid = 'theVendorId';

This does it all in one statement. If you receive a sqlcode=100 then, the vendor id doesn't exist in the parent table.

Well, you can also use the vendor id in the child table as a direkt foreign key to the parent table - as long as the vendor id of the parent table is a unique key.

I wouldn't consider this as best practice - but technically it's possible.

HTH
Daniel

Am 11.02.2025 um 15:25 schrieb DEnglander--- via MIDRANGE-L <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

Thank you.

That is what I thought.

The reason I asked is this: I have a table that I would like to have
function as the Parent. I want to possibly have other tables have
referential integrity with it. If I have an Identity number as the key [as
opposed to a Vendor Number for example], then how would I set something
like: A Child table's Vendor Number column must have a value that exists
in the Parent's Vendor Number column. Unless I'm missing something, it's
not as easy using Identity columns only, since you first have to get the
Identity column of the Vendor whose associated row you want to write in
the Child table. Sounds like extra steps to me, but maybe it's worth it?

Thanks again,

Doug



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