Restrictive Constraints

See Also

A restrictive constraint prevents invalid data being entered in the database. For example, you could define a restrictive constraint to ensure that a tour booking date is always earlier than the tour start date.

You define a restrictive constraint as a SELECT statement. The example above could be written as:

SELECT    ' ' violated

FROM    reservation r, schedtour st

WHERE    r.schedtour_id = st.schedtour_id

AND    r.book_date >= st.start_date

When you define a restrictive constraint, you also may specify a message. If the constraint selects a record, this is a violation of the business rule and the message is shown as error message.

You could also write a restrictive constraint to ensure that only valid bank account numbers can be entered. This is necessary if, for example, the individual digits in the bank account number must satisfy some proof.