Terminology question: Is Composite Key the same as Concatenated Key?

[jblomqvist]

Hi all,

I have seen some blogs mention using a composite key to handle synthetic tables. Is this the same as creating a concatenated key?

I get confused by the terminology so just want to check what composite key means exactly.

Thanks

[stigchel]

Yes it is, it is a combination of two or more columns in a table that can be used to uniquely identify each row in the table. Uniqueness is only guaranteed when the columns are combined; when taken individually the columns do not guarantee uniqueness