3 ms·
(Interesting cultural assumption there that people are born in hospitals under the supervision of doctors) The thing is to qualify as a natural key I think it
by jameshart 5y ago
(Interesting cultural assumption there that people are born in hospitals under the supervision of doctors)
The thing is to qualify as a natural key I think it has to be precisely recoverable just from first principles wherever you encounter the artifact it references. The birth details aren’t inherent to the person, they’re datapoints about them.
All the identifiers you propose to make up mnatural’ keys are synthetic keys from some other authority for identifying things. VINs obviously are synthetic identifiers, but so are names, dates, hospital addresses.
As you rightly say, a string is a natural key for itself; likewise a number.
The only other ‘natural key’ I can think of is atomic number for identifying chemical elements.
- mulmen 5y agoI said a database that tracks people could identify me using information about my birth. Not that everyone is born in a hospital or by a doctor. By your definition there are no natural keys. But since that definition isn't useful we instead use one that is. The natural key is the identifier by which the thing is already known. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_key https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_key
- CRConrad 5y ago> I said a database that tracks people could identify me using information about my birth. And your name, you said. > The natural key is the identifier by which the thing is already known. And then you change your name.