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Primary key, foreign key, and unique key using dedicated SQL pool in Azure Synapse Analytics

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Learn about table constraints in dedicated SQL pool, including primary key, foreign key, and unique key.

Table constraints

Dedicated SQL pool supports these table constraints:

  • PRIMARY KEY is only supported when NONCLUSTERED and NOT ENFORCED are both used.
  • UNIQUE constraint is only supported when NOT ENFORCED is used.

For syntax, check ALTER TABLE and CREATE TABLE.

FOREIGN KEY constraint is not supported in dedicated SQL pool.

Remarks

Having primary key and/or unique key allows dedicated SQL pool engine to generate an optimal execution plan for a query. All values in a primary key column or a unique constraint column should be unique.

Important

After creating a table with primary key or unique constraint in dedicated SQL pool, users need to make sure all values in those columns are unique. A violation of that may cause the query to return inaccurate result.

This example shows how a query may return inaccurate result if the primary key or unique constraint column includes duplicate values.

 -- Create table t1
CREATE TABLE t1 (a1 INT NOT NULL, b1 INT) WITH (DISTRIBUTION = ROUND_ROBIN)

-- Insert values to table t1 with duplicate values in column a1.
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1, 100)
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (1, 1000)
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (2, 200)
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (3, 300)
INSERT INTO t1 VALUES (4, 400)

-- Run this query.  No primary key or unique constraint.  4 rows returned. Correct result.
SELECT a1, COUNT(*) AS total FROM t1 GROUP BY a1

/*
a1          total
----------- -----------
1           2
2           1
3           1
4           1

(4 rows affected)
*/

-- Add unique constraint
ALTER TABLE t1 ADD CONSTRAINT unique_t1_a1 unique (a1) NOT ENFORCED

-- Re-run this query.  5 rows returned.  Incorrect result.
SELECT a1, count(*) AS total FROM t1 GROUP BY a1

/*
a1          total
----------- -----------
2           1
4           1
1           1
3           1
1           1

(5 rows affected)
*/

-- Drop unique constraint.
ALTER TABLE t1 DROP CONSTRAINT unique_t1_a1

-- Add primary key constraint
ALTER TABLE t1 add CONSTRAINT PK_t1_a1 PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED (a1) NOT ENFORCED

-- Re-run this query.  5 rows returned.  Incorrect result.
SELECT a1, COUNT(*) AS total FROM t1 GROUP BY a1

/*
a1          total
----------- -----------
2           1
4           1
1           1
3           1
1           1

(5 rows affected)
*/

-- Manually fix the duplicate values in a1
UPDATE t1 SET a1 = 0 WHERE b1 = 1000

-- Verify no duplicate values in column a1 
SELECT * FROM t1

/*
a1          b1
----------- -----------
2           200
3           300
4           400
0           1000
1           100

(5 rows affected)
*/

-- Add unique constraint
ALTER TABLE t1 add CONSTRAINT unique_t1_a1 UNIQUE (a1) NOT ENFORCED  

-- Re-run this query.  5 rows returned.  Correct result.
SELECT a1, COUNT(*) as total FROM t1 GROUP BY a1

/*
a1          total
----------- -----------
2           1
3           1
4           1
0           1
1           1

(5 rows affected)
*/

-- Drop unique constraint.
ALTER TABLE t1 DROP CONSTRAINT unique_t1_a1

-- Add primary key contraint
ALTER TABLE t1 ADD CONSTRAINT PK_t1_a1 PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED (a1) NOT ENFORCED

-- Re-run this query.  5 rows returned.  Correct result.
SELECT a1, COUNT(*) AS total FROM t1 GROUP BY a1

/*
a1          total
----------- -----------
2           1
3           1
4           1
0           1
1           1

(5 rows affected)
*/

Examples

Create a dedicated SQL pool table with a primary key:

CREATE TABLE mytable (c1 INT PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED NOT ENFORCED, c2 INT);

Create a dedicated SQL pool table with a unique constraint:

CREATE TABLE t6 (c1 INT UNIQUE NOT ENFORCED, c2 INT);

Next steps

After creating the tables for your dedicated SQL pool, the next step is to load data into the table. For a loading tutorial, see Loading data to dedicated SQL pool.