Primary vs alternate key

[slimdave]

My bad ... I was testing it with ...

SQL> create table my_tab2 (my_date references my_table(my_date));
create table my_tab2 (my_date references my_table)
                                         *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-02268: referenced table does not have a primary key

... instead of ...

SQL> create table my_tab2 (my_date references my_table(my_date));

Table created.

Anyhoo, I don't see an advantage in this case in defining an AK instead of a PK -- it sounds like a disadvantage as far as maintainability goes.

the real problem is that column being the key on table 1, i think, but i guess you can't do much about that.