Re: A generic question: Schema without foreign key specification?

Kumar,

>  While designing 3-4 different schemas for my
> database, a question has been chasing me. I am not a
> CS graduate and I was never taught the nitty gritty's
> of Dabase schema or rules.

Me neither.  I learned the hard way, on the job.

> My question is - a schema that has no foreign key
> defined (except in 1 or 2 instances), will it be
> considered a good schema or bad schema by experts.

Bad, unless there's only 2 or 3 tables for your 1 or 2 joins.

> Imagine a scenario where most of the relations are
> defined by linker tables(relationship table) that is
> formed by two different primary keys from two
> different tables are defined to avoid foreign key
> relationships. creating a database in this kind of
> scenario, can it be considered a good database design.

But in that case you should have FKs from the linker tables.

--
--Josh

Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco