Question

I have a table that holds data received from a thirdparty via an api and has the default id field that rails adds upon running the migration. I also have a primary key which I receive the from the third party which I need to store and use in my business logic. Without doing the following, the relations from other models don’t work:

class ThirdPartyStuff < ActiveRecord::Base

  set_primary_key :thirdpartysID

  ...

end

Is that ok to do? Any pit falls or problems that might arise?

Answer 1

You can only have a primary key per table (the pk can contain more that one field but still only one PK).

If you want a column to act like a PK: set it as UNIQUE and NOT NULL. If you want to reference another table: create a Foreign Key.