How can I create a unique constraint on my column (SQL Server 2008 R2)?

Question

I have SQL Server 2008 R2 and I want to set a unique column.

There seems to be two ways to do this: \"unique index\" and \"unique constraint\". They are not much

Answer 1

One thing not clearly covered is that microsoft sql is creating in the background an unique index for the added constraint

create table Customer ( id int primary key identity (1,1) , name nvarchar(128) ) 

--Commands completed successfully.

sp_help Customer

---> index
--index_name    index_description   index_keys
--PK__Customer__3213E83FCC4A1DFA    clustered, unique, primary key located on PRIMARY   id

---> constraint
--constraint_type   constraint_name delete_action   update_action   status_enabled  status_for_replication  constraint_keys
--PRIMARY KEY (clustered)   PK__Customer__3213E83FCC4A1DFA  (n/a)   (n/a)   (n/a)   (n/a)   id


---- now adding the unique constraint

ALTER TABLE Customer ADD CONSTRAINT U_Name UNIQUE(Name)

-- Commands completed successfully.

sp_help Customer

---> index
---index_name   index_description   index_keys
---PK__Customer__3213E83FCC4A1DFA   clustered, unique, primary key located on PRIMARY   id
---U_Name   nonclustered, unique, unique key located on PRIMARY name

---> constraint
---constraint_type  constraint_name delete_action   update_action   status_enabled  status_for_replication  constraint_keys
---PRIMARY KEY (clustered)  PK__Customer__3213E83FCC4A1DFA  (n/a)   (n/a)   (n/a)   (n/a)   id
---UNIQUE (non-clustered)   U_Name  (n/a)   (n/a)   (n/a)   (n/a)   name

as you can see , there is a new constraint and a new index U_Name