Netezza / PureData – How to add a Foreign Key

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DDL (Data Definition Language), Netezza PureData How to add a Foreign Key
DDL (Data Definition Language)

Adding a forging key to tables in Netezza / PureData is a best practice; especially, when working with dimensionally modeled data warehouse structures and with modern governance, integration (including virtualization), presentation semantics (including reporting, business intelligence and analytics).

Foreign Key (FK) Guidelines

  • A primary key must be defined on the table and fields (or fields) to which you intend to link the foreign key
  • Avoid using distribution keys as foreign keys
  • Foreign Key field should not be nullable
  • Your foreign key link field(s) must be of the same format(s) (e.g. integer to integer, etc.)
  • Apply standard naming conventions to constraint name:
    • FK_<<Constraint_Name>>_<<Number>>
    • <<Constraint_Name>>_FK<<Number>>
  • Please note that foreign key constraints are not enforced in Netezza

Steps to add a Foreign Key

The process for adding foreign keys involves just a few steps:

  • Verify guidelines above
  • Alter table add constraint SQL command
  • Run statistics, which is optional, but strongly recommended

Basic Foreign Key SQL Command Structure

Here is the basic syntax for adding Foreign key:

ALTER TABLE <<Owner>>.<<NAME_OF_TABLE_BEING_ALTERED>>

ADD CONSTRAINT <<Constraint_Name>>_fk<Number>>

FOREIGN KEY (<<Field_Name or Field_Name List>>) REFERENCES <<Owner>>.<<target_FK_Table_Name>.(<<Field_Name or Field_Name List>>) <<On Update | On Delete>> action;

Example Foreign Key SQL Command

This is a simple one field example of the foreign key (FK)

ALTER TABLE Blog.job_stage_fact

ADD CONSTRAINT job_stage_fact_host_dim_fk1

FOREIGN KEY (hostid) REFERENCES Blog.host_dim(hostid) ON DELETE cascade ON UPDATE no action;

Related References

Alter Table

PureData System for Analytics, PureData System for Analytics 7.2.1, IBM Netezza database user documentation, Netezza SQL command reference, Alter Table, constraints