Full Answer Section

Entity integrity and referential integrity are important in a database because they help to ensure the accuracy and consistency of the data. When entity integrity is enforced, it prevents duplicate data from being entered into the database. When referential integrity is enforced, it prevents orphaned records from existing in the database.

Application example:

Consider a database that stores information about students and their courses. The student table would have a primary key of student ID. The course table would have a primary key of course ID. The student_course table would have two foreign keys: student ID and course ID.

Entity integrity would ensure that each student in the student table has a unique student ID. Referential integrity would ensure that every student_course record in the student_course table references a valid student ID in the student table and a valid course ID in the course table.

If entity integrity and referential integrity were not enforced, the database could contain inaccurate and inconsistent data. For example, there could be multiple student records with the same student ID, or there could be student_course records that reference student IDs or course IDs that do not exist in the database.

Benefits of entity integrity and referential integrity:

Improved data accuracy and consistency
Reduced errors
Easier data maintenance
Increased data reliability
Entity integrity and referential integrity are essential for any database that needs to store and manage accurate and reliable data.