Deferred referential integrity checking based on determining whether row at-a-time referential integrity checking would yield the same results as deferred integrity checking

A method, apparatus, and article of manufacture for a computer implemented data manager. A statement is executed in a computer. The statement being performed by the computer to access data from a database stored on a data storage device connected to the computer. A determination is made as to whether to defer referential integrity checking when executing the statement. When it is determined that referential integrity checking is to be deferred, each record is processed that is specified in the statement. Keys for select records are stored as each record is processed. Then, after executing the statement, referential integrity checking is performed on the stored keys.