What Is Referential Integrity And How Can We Achieve It?
Answers
Referential integrity refers to the accuracy and consistency of data within a relationship.
In relationships, data is linked between two or more tables. This is achieved by having the foreign key (in the associated table) reference a primary key value (in the primary – or parent – table). Because of this, we need to ensure that data on both sides of the relationship remain intact.
So, referential integrity requires that, whenever a foreign key value is used it must reference a valid, existing primary key in the parent table.
For example, if we delete record number 15 in a primary table, we need to be sure that there’s no foreign key in any related table with the value of 15. We should only be able to delete a primary key if there are no associated records. Otherwise, we would end up with an orphaned record.
In the Fig. we observe that the related table contains a foreign key value that doesn’t exist in the primary key field of the primary table (i.e. the “CompanyId” field). This has resulted in an “orphaned record”.
