Enforcement of referential constraints in a database system

A system and method for enforcing referential integrity within a database system 10 provides for determination of relevant referential constraints at compile time for an access plan. All referential constraints that are relevant to data changes to the database are identified when the access plan 14 is created. Code necessary for performing referential constraint checks is inserted directly into the access plan at compile time, eliminating the necessity for determining the relevant constraints at run time. Constraints checking can be performed using substantially the same low-level procedural statements already used in the access plan for performing database accesses.