Chapter 1: System Procedures

sp_primarykey

Defines a primary key on a table or view.

sp_primarykey tabname, col1 [, col2, col3, ..., col8]

tabname: is the name of the table or view on which to define the primary key.

col1: is the name of the first column that makes up the primary key. The primary key can consist of from one to eight columns.

Defines the au_id field as the primary key of the table authors:

sp_primarykey authors, au_id

Defines the combination of the fields lastname and firstname as the primary key of the table employees:

sp_primarykey employees, lastname, firstname

Executing sp_primarykey adds the key to the syskeys table. Only the owner of a table or view can define its primary key. sp_primarykey does not enforce referential integrity constraints; use the primary key clause of the create table or alter table command to enforce a primary key relationship.
Define keys with sp_primarykey, sp_commonkey, and sp_foreignkey to make explicit a logical relationship that is implicit in your database design. An application program can use the information.
A table or view can have only one primary key. To display a report on the keys that have been defined, execute sp_helpkey.
The installation process runs sp_primarykey on the appropriate columns of the system tables.

Only the owner of the specified table or view can execute sp_primarykey.

Values in event and extrainfo columns from the sysaudits table are:

Event	Audit option	Command or access audited	Information in extrainfo
38	exec_procedure	Execution of a procedure	Roles – Current active roles Keywords or options – NULL Previous value – NULL Current value – NULL Other information – All input parameters Proxy information – Original login name, if set proxy in effect