Types of Keys in DBMS

According to Codd, Date, and all other experts, a key has only one meaning in relational theory: it is a set of one or
more columns whose combined values are unique among all occurrences in a given table.
A key is the relational means of specifying uniqueness.
1. Unique Key 2. Primary Key 3. Super Key 4.Candidate Key 5. Alternate Key 6. Composite Key
7. Foreign Key

Primary keys are used to uniquely identify rows in a relational database design. It usually comprises of a single table
column, but may consist of a multiple columns as well. Each row in a table must have a distinct value (or a set of
values) in the column marked as the primary key. It is possible for a table to have more than one column with unique
values in the table, however only one primary key can be defined. Each column with distinct values is called a unique
key.
It should be kept in mind that a unique key must have distinct values in all possible rows, not just the currently existing
ones. The Social Security Number, ISBN on books etc are good examples of unique keys.

A primary key can be regarded as a special unique key. No row can have an empty value (called the NULL) in the
primary key column, where as a unique key is allowed to hold a NULL.

Primary keys can be defined at the time of table creation or can be added in after the table has been created.
Difference B/w Unique & P.Key
A. Primary key is Combination of Unique, Not Null & has the irreducible property.

Super Key
If we add additional attribute to a primary key the resulting combination would still uniquely identify as instance of
entity set, this augmented key are called super key.
Eg. Roll no and name
ie Super key can still be reducible to have form a primary key.

Candidate Key
There can be several key's in a given relation, that can be identified uniquely. Those can be called Candidate keys
Minimal Super key is called as candidate key

An attribute or set of attributes that can identify uniquely in a given relation - SUPER KEY.
An attribute alone that can identify uniquely in a relation is called Primary Key.
There can be several key's in a given relation, that can be identified uniquely. Those can be called Candidate keys.

A superkey is defined as a set of attributes of a relation for which it holds that in all relations assigned
to that variable there are no two distinct tuples (rows) that have the same values for the attributes in
this set.
As an example
Code:

+-------------+------------+------------+
| Roll Number | First Name | Last Name |
+-------------+------------+------------+
| CSU0001 | Shabbir | Bhimani |
| CSU0002 | SomeName | SurName |
| CSU0003 | Larry | page |
+-------------+------------+------------+

Now here we have the following as super keys

1. Roll Number | First Name - SK1

2. Roll Number | First Name | Last Name - SK2
Super Key = Combination of (Unique Key + Non Unique key)

A candidate key of a relationship is a set of attributes of that relationship such that there are no two
distinct tuples with the same values for these attributes.

In simple example candidate key is a minimal superkey, i.e. a superkey of which no proper subset is
also a superkey.
Roll No is the Candidate key for SK1 & SK2

Since a relation is a set(no duplicate elements), it holds that every relation will have at least one
candidate key (because the entire heading is always a superkey).
For practical reasons RDBMS usually require that for each relation one of its candidate keys is declared
as the primary key

Alternate key
For example, a relational database with a table "employee" could have attributes like "employee_id",
"national_insurance_number", and so on. In this case, both "employee_id" and "national_insurance_number" serve as
unique identifiers for a given employee, and could thus arguably be used for a primary key. Hence, both of them are
called "candidate keys". If, for example, "national_insurance_number" was chosen as the primary key, "employee_id"
would become the alternate key.

Composite key
A primary key that consists of two or more attributes is known as composite key

Foreign key
A foreign key is a referential constraint between two tables.[1] The foreign key identifies a column or a set of columns
in one (referencing) table that refers to a column or set of columns in another (referenced) table. The columns in the
referencing table must be the primary key or other candidate key in the referenced table. The values in one row of the
referencing columns must occur in a single row in the referenced table

A table may have multiple foreign keys, and each foreign key can have a different referenced table. Each foreign key is
enforced independently by the database system. Therefore, cascading relationships between tables can be
established using foreign keys.