Relational Databases 101—Changing the Primary Key

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Changing the Primary Key

One other point before I move on. Once a primary key is created, it should be considered inviolate. If you think that a change to the primary key is necessary, think again. It's far safer and easier to delete the current hierarchy and rebuild it rather than simply trying to change a primary key. If the constraints are in place (and you can disable them in code), the server won't let you change the PK until all related dependencies are removed. That means you'll need to delete all of the parent's children (and all of the grandchildren) before changing or deleting the parent row. Since the parent might have a dozens of dependencies throughout the database, this is not an easy task.