Beginning Microsoft SQL Server 2008 ... - S3 Tech Training

Chapter 8: Being Normal: Normalization and Other Basic Design Issues
the table that you’re interested in. The default is column names only, but you should also take an interest
in the choice of Custom as we did in Chapter 5; this or Standard is what you would use when you want
to edit the table from right within the diagram (very nice!).
Adding and Deleting Tables
You can add a new table to the diagram in one of two ways.
If you have a table that already exists in the database (but not in the diagram), but now you want to add
it to your diagram, you simply click the Add Table button on the diagramming window’s toolbar. You’ll
be presented with a list of all the tables in the database — just choose the one that you want to add, and
it will appear along with any relationships it has to other tables in the diagram.
If you want to add a completely new table, click on New Table on the diagramming window’s toolbar or
right-click in the diagram and choose New Table; you’ll be asked for a name for the new table, and the table
will be added to the diagram in Column Properties view. Simply edit the properties to have the column
names, data types, and so on that you want, and you have a new table in the database.
Try It Out Adding Tables from Within the Diagram
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Let me take a moment to point out a couple of gotchas in this process.
First, don’t forget to add a primary key to your table. SQL Server does not automatically
do this, nor does it even prompt you (as Access does). This is a somewhat less
than intuitive process. To add a primary key, you must select the columns that you
want to have in the key. Then right-click and choose Set Primary Key.
Next, be aware that your new table is not actually added to the database until you
choose to save — this is also true of any edits that you make along the way.
Let’s go ahead and add a table to our database just to learn how it works.
Start by clicking on the New Table button in the diagramming window’s toolbar. When prompted for a
name, choose a name of CustomerNotes (see Figure 8-11). You should then get a new window table
using the Standard view:
Notice that I’ve added several columns to my table along with a primary key (remember, select the
columns you want to be the primary key, and then right-click and choose Set Primary Key). Before you
click to save this, let’s try something out — open up the Management Studio, and try to run a query
against your new table:
USE AdventureWorks 2008;
SELECT * FROM CustomerNotes;
Back comes an error message:
Msg 208, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Invalid object name ‘CustomerNotes’.