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Databases SQL Basics Finding the Data You Want Review & Practice with SQL Playgrounds

Ethan Martin
PLUS
Ethan Martin
Courses Plus Student 1,883 Points
Posted by Ethan Martin
Ethan Martin
Courses Plus Student 1,883 Points

Who are these Actors?

Hey guys! I can't tell what I'm doing wrong for this part of the code. Can someone check this? Thank you!

SELECT name FROM actors WHERE "id (PK)" IN (12127, 6901, 2071, 2831);

4 Answers

KRIS NIKOLAISEN
KRIS NIKOLAISEN
54,971 Points
KRIS NIKOLAISEN
KRIS NIKOLAISEN
54,971 Points

(PK) just identifies id as the primary key and is not part of the column name. Try:

SELECT name FROM actors WHERE id IN (12127, 6901, 2071, 2831);
Ethan Martin
Ethan Martin
Courses Plus Student 1,883 Points
Ethan Martin
Ethan Martin
Courses Plus Student 1,883 Points

Sorry wrong location... Thank you for your help!

but what does primary key mean? Why does it only have that for one column?

KRIS NIKOLAISEN
KRIS NIKOLAISEN
54,971 Points
KRIS NIKOLAISEN
KRIS NIKOLAISEN
54,971 Points

A primary key is a unique identifier for records in a table and is used for CRUD (creating, reading, updating, deleting records ) and for creating relationships with other tables. The most commonly used is an auto-incrementing integer (1,2,3,4,...).

Stephanie Youstra
Stephanie Youstra
18,513 Points
Stephanie Youstra
Stephanie Youstra
18,513 Points

Ethan Martin ~ a primary key is a unique identifier for that row in that table, a number assigned only to that particular row.

So, for this question you're referring to, Christian Bale has the unique identifier of 2071. He is the only individual in that Actors table with an ID of 2071, so anything in the Actors table that is associated with ID 2071 is going to be related to Christian Bale. Since the primary keys usually begin with 1 and auto-increment (increases by 1 each time), Christian Bale most likely (but not necessarily) was the 2071st actor added to this database.

It's the primary key because it's the primary way of identifying that particular row of data.