What is surrogate key?

What is a surrogate key example?

Some examples of Surrogate key are : System date & time stamp. Random alphanumeric string.

What is the purpose of surrogate key?

Software developers often use surrogate keys to business users to identify records. They are displayed on screens and printed on reports. However, surrogate keys are meaningless. They serve no purpose, except to technically identify a record uniquely in one source system.

What is surrogate key SQL?

A surrogate key in SQL Server is created a by assigning an identity property to a column that has a number data type. A surrogate key is a value generated right before the record is inserted into a table. There are several reasons to replace a natural key with a surrogate key.

What is difference between primary key and surrogate key?

A table may have only one primary key, but it may be composite (consist of more than one column). A surrogate key is any column or set of columns that can be declared as the primary key instead of a "real" or natural key.