Is it ok to use character values for primary keys?

Question

Is there a performance gain or best practice when it comes to using unique, numeric ID fields in a database table compared to using character-based ones?

For instanc

Answer 1

Text is fine, for all the reasons you mentioned.

If the string is only a few characters, then it will be nearly as small an an integer anyway. The biggest potential drawback to using strings is the size: database performance is related to how many disk accesses are needed. Making the index twice as big, for example, could create disk-cache pressure, and increase the number of disk seeks.