Primary Keys Guarantee Uniqueness? Think Again.

When you create a table with a primary key or a unique constraint, Oracle automatically creates a unique index, to ensure that the column does not contain a duplicate value on that column; or so you have been told. It must be true because that is the fundamental tenet of an Oracle database, or for that matter, any database.

Well, the other day I was checking a table. There is a primary key on the column PriKey. Here are the rows:

Select PriKey from TableName;

PriKey
------
1
1

I got two rows with the same value. The table does have a primary key on this column and it is enforced. I can test it by inserting another record with the same value - “1”:

SQL> insert into TableName values (1,…)

It errors with ORA-00001: unique constraint violated error. The question is: why there are two rows with duplicate values in a column that has an enforced primary key, and it refuses to accept the very value that is already violated the primary key? It could be a great interview question, test your mettle; or just entertaining. Read on for the answer.

Demystifying Big Data for Oracle Professionals

Ever wonder about Big Data and what exactly it means, especially if you are already an Oracle Database professional? Or, do you get lost in the jargon warfare that spews out terms like Hadoop, Map/Reduce and HDFS? In this post I will attempt to explain these terms from the perspective of a traditional database practitioner but getting wet on the Big Data issues by being thrown in the water. I was inspired to write this from the recent incident involving NSA scooping up Verizon call data invading privacy of the citizens.