interview question?

How many tables can be updated with a single update ?I would answer only one
but I'm curious of the exact answer|||even i support one ,but it is correct|||One|||I think one|||zero (where clause finds no rows)

one (duh)

many (updated row cascades to related tables)|||Cascading updates ... hmm ... why didnt I think of that ...

Well .. seems like I lost any chance of getting this job|||What does n mean ... Mr BK|||brett probably means m, not n

m is n + 1

:cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool: :cool:|||I thought n meant any number...

m to me means many, but infers a relationship as in 1-m

either way...

However, here's a poll type question...how many people use cascade...

I've never...always wanted more control...prefer to delete and insert...

(And keep history)|||Never !!!|||when updates are performed, if you're writing audit records or something, those triggers should fire no matter whether the table being updated is the target table or a related table, right?

oh, and to me, m implies 0 to many, not 1 to many

my answer to the question was "zero, one, or many"

;)|||Originally posted by r937
when updates are performed, if you're writing audit records or something, those triggers should fire no matter whether the table being updated is the target table or a related table, right?

oh, and to me, m implies 0 to many, not 1 to many

my answer to the question was "zero, one, or many"

;)

fair enough...but now we trapse down the logical data modeling path...

things are not always 0-m...could be required to be 1-m...

EDIT: And you didn't answer the cascade question...|||sorry, i assumed my answer to the cascade question would be obvious

i use as much RI (http://evolt.org/RI) as the database supports

unless i'm doing consulting work at a cllient site where there's a DBA with veto on changes or exceptions to his database guidelines...

but that's politics ;)|||That's a great link...love the VW...

And yes, I get the cascade answer...you must be a big IDENTITY kind of guy...

I never thought of cascading as a function of RI though...

but it seems related...

no pun intended|||I use cascading for RI whenever possible. There have been a few times where I have modeled relationships with multiple update paths, and then Cascading fails and I had to resort to triggers.|||Originally posted by Brett Kaiser
That's a great link...love the VW... thanks

actually, when it comes to the natural versus surrogate primary key debate, i tend to favour natural keys, insofar as any candidate key can be called "natural"

however, i have been know to use IDENTITY and its cousins AUTONUMBER, AUTO_INCREMENT, and SEQUENCE from time to time

one of the best articles on the subject, long but very worth the time to read, is Key Points About Surrogate Keys (http://www.rationalcommerce.com/resources/surrogates.htm)|||i think guid is coming up ;)|||You know...|||why I outta...Moe, Larry build a database...