From the course: Data Curation Foundations

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Indexes

Indexes

From the course: Data Curation Foundations

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Indexes

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- [Instructor] Now that we've talked a little about data structure, we can talk about how data tables relate to each other, which is through indexes. Indexes, or indices if you want to go all Latin on me, are fields or a combination of fields used by the database as a way of identifying particular rows. In other words, the database keeps track of the values in those columns, kind of like keeping a list of addresses of where houses are so it can easily find them again. Indexes are used by the database in searching and also in joining tables, which happens in a relational database when tables relate to each other. Another name for indexes is keys. There is a special index called the primary key, or PK for short. Each table should have a primary key which is unique in all the table, like a unique row ID column. It's easiest if it is one column, but you can have a composite key. For example, in an appointment…

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