Data integrity: the process of maintaining the consistency of the database.

Being able to guarantee data integrity is vital to the database.

Tutor Definition: Data integrity is the process of ensuring all fields contain information that is up to date, correct at the time of filling in and consistent.

Referential Integrity

Referential Integrity: a technique for ensuring data integrity in a referential database.

Refers to the accuracy and consistency of data within a relationship.

Tutor Definition: Referential integrity is the ensuring that fields that are the same between tables that contain the same data. This can be done by having a relationship between tables. For example, this can be broken in a flat file database if the address of a person is updated in one table and not the other.

Referential integrity is a sub-set of data integrity.

Enforce Cascade Delete Restraint

Associated data/relationships are deleted alongside the primary key, if/when deleted.

This must be used with caution as it may delete crucial/important/unrelated data.