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

From Holger Jakobs
Subject Re: How do I alter an existing column and add a foreign key which is a Primary key to a table?
Date
Msg-id 5CE41E80-274A-44DA-9553-E2DCA260F751@jakobs.com
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In response to How do I alter an existing column and add a foreign key which is aPrimary key to a table?  (Karen Goh <karenworld@yahoo.com>)
Responses Re: How do I alter an existing column and add a foreign key whichis a Primary key to a table?
List pgsql-admin

Am 21. Juli 2019 02:58:05 MESZ schrieb Karen Goh <karenworld@yahoo.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
andtheir JOIN operations. This is a common misconception. 

Regards,

Holger

--
Holger Jakobs, Bergisch Gladbach
+49 178 9759012
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