title: Composite keys v surrogate keys for weak entities in MySQL
body: <p>Until now, I have been creating surrogate keys, to act as primary keys for each of my tables. I'm happy with this for the most part.</p>
  
  <p>However, <strong>for weak entities that are dependent upon other tables</strong>, I have read that it is preferable to use a foreign key and one of the weak entity's attributes to create a composite key that acts as the primary key. </p>
  
  <p>Is there any benefit to this method or can I continue using surrogate keys for all of my tables?</p>