Home/ Questions/Q 7042325
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-28T02:09:17+00:00

I need some clarification. What is a lookup table and what is a reference

  • 0

I need some clarification. What is a lookup table and what is a reference table in SQL?

I was under the impression that a lookup table is a table that has static data that hardly ever changes (e.g. a table that has all 50 states and their capitals) and a reference table is one that contains primary keys and links two other tables. In the example below, Table B would be a reference table. Can someone tell me what Table B is called?

Table A
CustomerID
CustomerName
CustomerAddress

Table B
CustomerID
OrderID

Table C
OrderID
OrderDate
Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Table B is a Link Table or Junction Table.

    Reference and Lookup tables can mean different things for different sources, and I am not aware of a strict definition to differentiate the two.

    For me personally I normally use a reference to mean an long value stored out of the main table (like a StoreID), and lookup to mean a list of allowable values (enforced by a FK constraint) for a certain field.

    • 0