• Superkey
– A relation is a set of one or more attributes whose values
are guaranteed to identify tuples in the relation uniquely.
• Candidate key
– A minimal superkey, that is, a set of attributes that forms
a superkey, but none of whose subsets is a superkey.
• Primary key
– One of the candidate keys of a relation is chosen.
• Foreign key
– A set of attributes in a referencing relation ,such that for
each tuple in the referencing relation, the values of the
foreign key attributes are guaranteed to occur as the
primary key value of a tuple in the referenced relation.