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Super Key in DBMS

Super Key in DBMS: The super key is a column or a set of columns in the database table, which uniquely identifies the tuple or row of the same table. It is a type of key, which is the superset of the candidate key.

We are describing this concept with the following example.

This example uses an Employee table, which contains three columns/fields/attributes. The names of these three columns in the table are Employee_ID, Employee_Name, Employee_EmailID.

Employee_IDEmployee_NameEmployee_EmailID
301Anujabc@gmail.com
302Chetanxyz@gmail.com
303Lalitmn@gmail.com
304Lakshmanpqr@gmail.com
305Lalitdef@gmail.com

Table: Employee

Now, we have to search for all the super keys present in the above table.

Following are the super keys of this employee table:  

1. { Employee_ID}

2. {Employee_EmailID}

3. { Employee_ID, Employee_EmailID }

4. { Employee_ID, Employee_Name }

5. { Employee_ID, Employee_Name, Employee_EmailID }

6. { Employee_Name, Employee_EmailID }

All the above columns or sets of columns are able to uniquely identify each row in the table Employee. So, each defined key is a super key. You can easily identify the candidate keys from the above-defined keys.

Now, we will learn about the difference between the candidate and super key.

Difference Between the Super key and Candidate Key

Super KeyCandidate key
1. It is a field or set of fields/columns, which uniquely denotes each record in the database table.1. It is a proper subset of the super key.
2. The number of keys defined as super is more than the number of candidate keys in any database table.2. In the same database table, the number of keys defined as a candidate is less than the number of super keys.
3. All the keys which are defined as the super key cannot be candidate keys.3. But, all the table keys defined as the candidate key are the super keys.

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