Question

Could someone clarify what is the purpose of having unique index without unique constraint (Oracle)?
For example,

create table test22(id int, id1 int, tmp varchar(20));
create unique index idx_test22 on test22(id);
insert into test22(id, id1, tmp) values (1, 2, 'aaa'); // ok
insert into test22(id, id1, tmp) values (1, 2, 'aaa'); // fails, ORA-00001: unique   
  // constraint (TEST.IDX_TEST22) violated

So far it looks like there is a constraint. But

create table test33(id int not null primary key, 
test22_id int not null, 
foreign key(test22_id) references test22(id) );

also fails with "ORA-02270: no matching unique or primary key for this column-list".
I’m totally confused by this behaviour. Is there a constraint or not?

There are many articles that explain why it’s possible to have a unique constraint without unique index; that is clear and makes perfect sense. However, I don’t understand the reason for unique index without constraint.

Answer 1

A constraint and an index are separate logical entities. A unique constraint, for example, is visible in USER_CONSTRAINTS (or ALL_CONSTRAINTS or DBA_CONSTRAINTS). An index is visible in USER_INDEXES (or ALL_INDEXES or DBA_INDEXES).

A unique constraint is enforced by an index though it is possible (and sometimes necessary) to enforce a unique constraint using a non-unique index. A deferrable unique constraint, for example, is enforced using a non-unique index. If you create a non-unique index on a column and subsequently create a unique constraint, you can also use that non-unique index to enforce the unique constraint.

In practice, a unique index acts very much like a unique, non-deferrable constraint in that it raises the same error that a unique constraint raises since the implementation of unique constraints uses the index. But it is not quite the same because there is no constraint. So, as you’ve seen, there is no unique constraint so you cannot create a foreign key constraint that references the column.

There are cases where you can create a unique index that you cannot create a unique constraint. A function-based index, for example, that enforces conditional uniqueness. If I wanted to create a table that supported logical deletes but ensure that COL1 is unique for all non-deleted rows

SQL> ed
Wrote file afiedt.buf

  1  CREATE TABLE t (
  2    col1 number,
  3    deleted_flag varchar2(1) check( deleted_flag in ('Y','N') )
  4* )
SQL> /

Table created.

SQL> create unique index idx_non_deleted
  2      on t( case when deleted_flag = 'N' then col1 else null end);

Index created.

SQL> insert into t values( 1, 'N' );

1 row created.

SQL> insert into t values( 1, 'N' );
insert into t values( 1, 'N' )
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00001: unique constraint (SCOTT.IDX_NON_DELETED) violated


SQL> insert into t values( 1, 'Y' );

1 row created.

SQL> insert into t values( 1, 'Y' );

1 row created.

But if we’re talking about a straight unique non-function based index, there are probably relatively few cases where it really makes more sense to create the index rather than creating the constraint. On the other hand, there are relatively few cases where it makes much difference in practice. You’d almost never want to declare a foreign key constraint that referenced a unique constraint rather than a primary key constraint so you rarely lose something by only creating the index and not creating the constraint.