Briefly explain super key in relation with primary key-01060

Super key

A super key is a set of one or more attributes which taken collectively, allow us to identify uniquely an entity instance in the entity set. This definition is same as of a key, it means that the super key is the most general type of key. For example, consider the entity type STUDENT with attributes registration number, name, father name, address, phone, class, admission date. Now which attribute can we use that can uniquely identify any instance of STUDENT entity type. Of course, none of the name, father name, address, phone number, class, admission date can be used for this purpose. WhyBecause if we consider name as super key, and situation arises that we need to contact the parents of a particular student. Now if we say to our registration department that give us the phone number of the student whose name is Ilyas Hussain, the registration department conducts a search and comes up with 10 different Ilyas Hussain, could be anyone. So the value of the name attribute cannot be used to pick a particular instance. Same happens with other attributes. However, if we use the registration number, then it is 100% sure that with a particular value of registration number we will always find exactly a single unique entity instance. Once you identified the instance, you have all its attributes available, name, father name, everything. The entity type STUDENT and its attributes are shown graphically in the figure 1 below, with its super key "regNo" underlined.