Updating a composite primary key
- by VBCSharp
I am struggling with the philosophical discussions about whether or not to use composite primary keys on my SQL Server database. I have always used the surrogate keys in the past and I am challenging myself by leaving my comfort zone to try something different. I have read many discussion but can't come to any kind of solution yet. The struggle I am having is when I have to update a record with the composite PK. For example, the record in questions is like this: ContactID, RoleID, EffectiveDate, TerminationDT. The PK in this case is the ContactID, RoleID, and EffectiveDate. TerminationDT can be null. If in my UI, the user changes the RoleID and then I need to update the record. Using the surrogate key I can do an Update Table Set RoleID = 1 WHERE surrogateID = Z. However, using the Composite Key way, once one of the fields in the composite key changes I have no way to reference the old record to update it without now maintaining somewhere in the UI a reference to the old values. I do not bind datasources in my UI. I open a connection, get the data and store it in a bucket, then close the connection. What are everyone's opinions? Thanks.
