Alternate Key
It is commonplace in SQL databases to declare a single primary key, the most important unique key. However, there could be further unique keys that could serve the same purpose. These should be marked as 'unique' keys. This is done to prevent incorrect data from entering a table (a duplicate entry is not valid in a unique column) and to make the database more complete and useful. These could be called alternate keys.
Read more about this topic: Unique Key
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