Can You Have a Foreign Key Onto a View of a Linked Server Table in SQLserver 2K5

Can you have a Foreign Key onto a View of a Linked Server table in SQLServer 2k5?

Foreign keys can't be connected to non-local objects - they have to reference local tables. You get the "maximum number of prefixes" error because you're referencing the table with a 4-part name (LinkedServer.Database.Schema.Object), and a local object would only have a 3-part name.

Other solutions :

1. Replicate the data from the source (the location of the view) to the same server as the table you're trying to add the key on. You can do this hourly, daily, or whatever, depending on how often the source data changes.
2. Add a trigger on the source table to push any changes to your local copy. This would essentially be the same as #1, but with immediate population of changes
3. Add an INSTEAD OF" trigger to your table that manually checks the foreign key constraint by selecting from the linked server and comparing the value you're trying to INSERT/UPDATE. If it doesn't match, you can reject the change.

Foreign key in SQL Server 2008 pointing to another database

Use an instead of trigger (you may or may not need linked servers depending on whether the other database is on a differnt server). Make sure the trigger can handle multiple row inserts/updates/deletes. I'd also suggest moving the records that fail the check to an exception table.

How can I list all foreign keys referencing a given table in SQL Server?

Not sure why no one suggested but I use sp_fkeys to query foreign keys for a given table:

EXEC sp_fkeys 'TableName'

You can also specify the schema:

EXEC sp_fkeys @pktable_name = 'TableName', @pktable_owner = 'dbo'

Without specifying the schema, the docs state the following:

If pktable_owner is not specified, the default table visibility rules
of the underlying DBMS apply.

In SQL Server, if the current user owns a table with the specified
name, that table's columns are returned. If pktable_owner is not
specified and the current user does not own a table with the specified
pktable_name, the procedure looks for a table with the specified
pktable_name owned by the database owner. If one exists, that table's
columns are returned.

A way to check if foreign key exists in SQL 2005

You can use this script:

IF EXISTS (SELECT * 
           FROM sys.foreign_keys 
           WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[FK_NAME]') 
             AND parent_object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[MyTable]'))
BEGIN
    -- do stuff
END

This can be done if you expand out the table and right click on an existing FK and choose script key as "DROP TO" and then you will get a generated script from SQL.

Can foreign keys hurt query performance

I'm assuming that for INSERT queries, constraints - including foreign key constraints - will slow performance somewhat. The database has to check that whatever you've told it to insert is something that your constraints allow it to insert.

For SELECT queries, foreign key constraints shouldn't make any changes to performance.

Since INSERTS are almost always very quick, the small amount of extra time won't be noticeable, except in fringe cases. (Building a several gigabyte database, you might want to disable constraints and then re-enable later, as long as you're sure the data is good.)

How can foreign key constraints be temporarily disabled using T-SQL?

If you want to disable all constraints in the database just run this code:

-- disable all constraints
EXEC sp_MSforeachtable "ALTER TABLE ? NOCHECK CONSTRAINT all"

To switch them back on, run: (the print is optional of course and it is just listing the tables)

-- enable all constraints
exec sp_MSforeachtable @command1="print '?'", @command2="ALTER TABLE ? WITH CHECK CHECK CONSTRAINT all"

I find it useful when populating data from one database to another. It is much better approach than dropping constraints. As you mentioned it comes handy when dropping all the data in the database and repopulating it (say in test environment).

If you are deleting all the data you may find this solution to be helpful.

Also sometimes it is handy to disable all triggers as well, you can see the complete solution here.

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