Question

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[user](
        [userID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
        [fcode] [int] NULL,
        [scode] [int] NULL,
        [dcode] [int] NULL,
        [name] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
        [address] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
     CONSTRAINT [PK_user_1] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
    (
        [userID] ASC
    )
    ) ON [PRIMARY]

    GO

How do I add a unique constraint for columns fcode, scode, dcode with t-sql and/or management studio? fcode, scode, dcode must be unique together.

Answer 1

By using the constraint definition on table creation, you can specify one or multiple constraints that span multiple columns. The syntax, simplified from technet’s documentation, is in the form of:

CONSTRAINT constraint_name UNIQUE [ CLUSTERED | NONCLUSTERED ] 
(
    column [ ASC | DESC ] [ ,...n ]
)

Therefore, the resuting table definition would be:

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[user](
    [userID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [fcode] [int] NULL,
    [scode] [int] NULL,
    [dcode] [int] NULL,
    [name] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
    [address] [nvarchar](50) NULL,
    CONSTRAINT [PK_user_1] PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
    (
        [userID] ASC
    ),
    CONSTRAINT [UQ_codes] UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED
    (
        [fcode], [scode], [dcode]
    )
) ON [PRIMARY]