| Goal | Find foreign key constraints that reference to a UNIQUE constraint columns not to the PRIMARY KEY constraint columns. This is legal in SQL. However, a tradition is to refer to the primary key columns. If most of the foreign keys refer to the primary key columns, then it raises a question as to whether this kind of design decision has a good reason in a particular case or whether it is an inconsistency. |
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| Type | Problem detection Each row in the result could represent a flaw in the design |
| Reliability | High Few or no false-positive results |
| License | MIT (opens in new tab) |
| Data Source | system catalog only |
| SQL Query |
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Collections
This query belongs to the following collections:
Find problems about integrity constraints
A selection of queries that return information about the state of integrity constraints in the datadabase. Contains all the types of queries - problem detection, software measure, and general overview
Find problems automatically
Queries, that results point to problems in the database. Each query in the collection produces an initial assessment. However, a human reviewer has the final say as to whether there is a problem or not .
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Find problems about integrity constraints | A selection of queries that return information about the state of integrity constraints in the datadabase. Contains all the types of queries - problem detection, software measure, and general overview |
| Find problems automatically | Queries, that results point to problems in the database. Each query in the collection produces an initial assessment. However, a human reviewer has the final say as to whether there is a problem or not . |
Categories
This query is classified under the following categories:
Inconsistencies
Queries of this catergory provide information about inconsistencies of solving the same problem in different places.
Relationships between tables
Queries of this category provide information about how database tables are connected to each other and whether such connections have been explicitly defined and whether it has been done correctly.
Uniqueness
Queries of this category provide information about uniqueness constraints (PRIMARY KEY, UNIQUE, EXCLUDE) as well as unique indexes.
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Inconsistencies | Queries of this catergory provide information about inconsistencies of solving the same problem in different places. |
| Relationships between tables | Queries of this category provide information about how database tables are connected to each other and whether such connections have been explicitly defined and whether it has been done correctly. |
| Uniqueness | Queries of this category provide information about uniqueness constraints (PRIMARY KEY, UNIQUE, EXCLUDE) as well as unique indexes. |
Further reading and related materials:
| Reference |
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| The corresponding code smell in case of cleaning code is "G11: Inconsistency". (Robert C. Martin, Clean Code) |
| Based on rule 2 in: Delplanque, J., Etien, A., Auverlot, O., Mens, T., Anquetil, N., Ducasse, S.: CodeCritics applied to database schema: Challenges and first results. In: 2017 IEEE 24th International Conference on Software Analysis, Evolution and Reengineering (SANER), pp. 432-436. IEEE, (2017). |