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Friday, January 11, 2013

Difference between key , duplicate order key , Alternate Search key

Record Field Properties:

Difference between key , duplicate order key , Alternate Search key

Key:
  •     Helps us in uniquely identifying a row of data.
  •     The primary key must be the first field in the record, followed by the next most important key, and   so on.
  •     Key fields are followed by duplicate order keys, in order of importance, then by fields that are not keys.
  •     Can be used as Search key or listbox item or both.
Duplicate order key
  • Allows duplicate values.
                Example. Same Employee having multiple degrees at same date.
  • Do not create a related language record with a duplicate order key.
  • Can be used as listbox item.
Alternate Search key 
  •  This displays the field in the Advance Search and builds indexes on this field. 
  •  This will help in fast retrieval of data.
  •  Also keep in mind that, as these database indexes consume disk space, mark the field alernate search  key only if it is really required.
  •  Alternate key fields can be placed anywhere among regular fields (non-key fields), in any order. They do not need to be grouped.
  •  It is displayed in the Advanced search and can be used as Listbox item.
All these 3 keys are mutually exclusive.

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