SQL Cant change primary key column name after changing other column - mysql

Can someone please tell me why this happens. The original problem is as always much more complex, but I've created a simple test case to reproduce the issue. First you need a table like so:
CREATE TABLE `test` (
`test_a` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`test_b` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`test_a`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
Then you need to try to alter the table with this query:
ALTER TABLE `test`
CHANGE COLUMN `test_b` `new_test_b` INT(11) NOT NULL AFTER `test_a`,
CHANGE COLUMN `test_a` `new_test_a` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT FIRST;
and you get this result:
Unknown column 'test_a' in 'test'
I don't get it. It works fine when you do each alteration separately but if you do them together it blows up.
Addendum...
After studying this a bit, i figured out a few things. I took a guess that perhaps the compiler (or preprocessor or something) was evaluating the comma separated alter statements in reverse order, there-by changing the test_a column name before it got the the test_b (which would make the 'AFTER test_a' part not make sense.. This turned out to be wrong in testing because if you reverse the order of the statements like so:
ALTER TABLE `test
CHANGE COLUMN `test_a` `new_test_a` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT FIRST,
CHANGE COLUMN `test_b` `new_test_b` INT(11) NOT NULL AFTER `test_a`;
You end up with the same result.
Next I took the assumption that certain types of operations have precedence in a statement like this. I assumed that all CHANGE COLUMN operations must be taking place before any column ordering operations such as 'AFTER test_a' If this was the case, then it would make sense to reference the new column name in the ordering operation, like so:
ALTER TABLE `test`
CHANGE COLUMN `test_b` `new_test_b` INT(11) NOT NULL AFTER `new_test_a`,
CHANGE COLUMN `test_a` `new_test_a` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT FIRST;
This worked. So that must be the answer. My question i guess has evolved now to what is the order of precedence of the various types of operations.
Note, sorry I am not going to mark any of the current answers correct as they do not actually answer the question, they simply offer alternative ways to do the same thing (or state the obvious).

You can do it this way:
ALTER TABLE `test`
CHANGE COLUMN `test_b` `new_test_b` INT(11) NOT NULL AFTER `test_a`;
ALTER TABLE `test`
CHANGE COLUMN `test_a` `new_test_a` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT FIRST;

Related

Need clarity of UNIQUE and DEFAULT Constraints in SQL

So I just started learning SQL online and while learning about constraints, below example was given for using DEFAULT constraint:
CREATE TABLE persons(
ID INT NULL DEFAULT 100,
f_name VARCHAR(25),
l_name VCARCHAR(25),
UNIQUE(ID)
);
My question is, if ID is defaulted to 100, there can be multiple columns having 100 as ID, so wouldn't that contradict UNIQUE constraint, which ensures all columns to have different values?
Thank you for reading and your inputs!
Rohan
Though it's valid SQL and mysql allows this, it is a bad practice to define DEFAULT value on an column with UNIQUE constraint. This poor schema will lead to inconsistency in your data.
mysql> show create table persons;
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Table | Create Table |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| persons | CREATE TABLE `persons` (
`id` int(11) DEFAULT '100',
`f_name` varchar(10) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci DEFAULT NULL,
`l_name` varchar(10) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci DEFAULT NULL,
UNIQUE KEY `id` (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci |
+---------+------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
You are right, the combination of DEFAULT 100 and UNIQUE makes no sense.
The column is defined as nullable, so there can be many rows with the value null. Only when a row has a value different from null, must it be unique.
In order to insert nulls, you'd explicitely have this in your INSERT statement. If you don't set null explicitly, the default 100 will be written. This works for the first row treated that way, but the second time the 100 will violate the unique constraint, just as you say.
Well, a nullable ID makes no sense either, and ideally an ID should be auto-incremented, so you don't have to worry about using an unused ID, especially in an environment where multiple processes may try to insert rows at the same time.
So, the given examle is just very bad.
The combination of DEFAULT 100 and UNIQUE makes sense.
This combination means that the newly inserted row should have explicitly specified ID column value primarily.
The scheme allows to insert one row without ID value specified. But only one row. If you need to insert another row with this default/generic ID value then you must edit existing row and alter its ID value previously (or delete it).
In practice - this allows to save raw, incomplete, row, and edit it completely in future. For example, you insert generic row, then calculate needed row parameters and set needed references, and finally you assign some definite ID value to this row. After this you may insert another generic row and work with it.
Of course this situation is rare. But it may be useful in some cases.

MYSQL copy fields from one table's structure and add them to another tables

I've added some additional fields for my table in db. Now I need to have this additional fields in other few tables. So the question is - can I somehow copy those fields from source table and add them to another tables? Both mysql console and phpmyadmin variants woulbe be nice. Thanks!
A phpmyadmin variant would be to export the table's structure only (Export->Custom->Choose "Structure"). After that, you will get something like this in the exported SQL file:
CREATE TABLE `table` (
`id` int(10) NOT NULL,
`name` varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
At that point, you can go ahead and remove the last line of the query and the parenthesis after the CREATE TABLE. Then, go ahead and substitute the [other_table] name and change the query to match the following:
ALTER TABLE `[other_table]`
ADD `id` int(10) NOT NULL,
ADD `name` varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL;
Notice how all I did was change CREATE to ALTER and add ADD before each field.
NOTE: This is not very useful on such a trivial example, but when dealing with large amounts of columns, it could prove somewhat useful.

Should we use the "LIMIT clause" in following example?

There is a structure:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `categories` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`parent_id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
`title` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
Query_1:
SELECT * FROM `categories` WHERE `id` = 1234
Query_2:
SELECT * FROM `categories` WHERE `id` = 1234 LIMIT 1
I need to get just one row. Since we apply WHERE id=1234 (finding by PRIMARY KEY) obviously that row with id=1234 is only one in whole table.
After MySQL has found the row, whether engine to continue the search when using Query_1?
Thanks in advance.
Look at this SQLFiddle: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!2/a8713/4 and especially View Execution Plan.
You see, that MySQL recognizes the predicate on a PRIMARY column and therefore it does not matter if you add LIMIT 1 or not.
PS: A little more explanation: Look at the column rows of the Execution Plan. The number there is the amount of columns, the query engine thinks, it has to examine. Since the columns content is unique (as it's a primary key), this is 1. Compare it to this: http://sqlfiddle.com/#!2/9868b/2 same schema but without primary key. Here rows says 8. (The execution plan is explained in the German MySQL reference, http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.1/en/explain.html the English one is for some reason not so detailed.)

How to add a varchar field for a table already in use?

I've got a mysql database with a table (InnoDB) of Games:
gamerooms
id: bigint(20) unsigned not null auto_increment
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
I'd like to start generating a UUID value for each row which I can share publicly, something like:
gamerooms
id | id_public |
--------------------
1 | abcde
2 | ghijk
3 | lmnop
...
select * from gamerooms where id_public = ...
How do I add this new column, also keeping in mind that there are already records in the table? I'm confused because the column should be marked NOT NULL, but after adding the column, all records that already exist would have empty values.. Do I have to provide a default value?:
ALTER TABLE `gamerooms` ADD COLUMN `id_public` varchar(36) DEFAULT something AFTER `id`
I want to put an index on id_public of course after it's created, so not sure if null values after the column is first created will mess anything up.
Also, I can use varchar(36) with mysqls UUID() output, right?
Thank you
Your ALTER statement is correct:
ALTER TABLE `gamerooms`
ADD COLUMN `id_public` varchar(36) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'something' AFTER `id`
According to my MySQL Pocket Reference, if you don't provide a default value for a column that is defined as NOT NULL:
MySQL picks a value based on the type of the field
In this case, I'm guessing the default would be empty string. Once your column has been added, simply create a new index for the column, and rebuild the index using a null alteration instruction like so:
CREATE INDEX myIndex ON gamerooms(id_public);
ALTER TABLE gamerooms ENGINE = InnoDB;
You may be able to create the index at the same time you do the insert. My MySQL-fu isn't strong enough to know how to do that.
Should the existing records have a value once you create this new column? If yes, you could do this in multiple steps. First, create the new column without constraint or index and then back populate it with the UUID for all existing records. Once everything is populated, add the not null constraint and your indexes.
As a UUID is a 128-bit number, you don't need a varchar column to store it. a char(16) column would just be ok for saving a UUID binary data.
ALTER TABLE `gamerooms` ADD COLUMN `id_public` char(16) NOT NULL DEFAULT '' AFTER `id`

MySql can't make column auto_increment

I have a table "Bestelling" with 4 columns: "Id" (PK), "KlantId", "Datum", "BestellingsTypeId", now I want to make the column Id auto_increment, however, when I try to do that, I get this error:
ERROR 1062: ALTER TABLE causes auto_increment resequencing, resulting in duplicate entry '1' for key 'PRIMARY'
SQL Statement:
ALTER TABLE `aafest`.`aafest_bestelling` CHANGE COLUMN `Id` `Id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT
ERROR: Error when running failback script. Details follow.
ERROR 1046: No database selected
SQL Statement:
CREATE TABLE `aafest_bestelling` (
`Id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`KlantId` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`Datum` date DEFAULT NULL,
`BestellingstypeId` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`Id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
Anyone got an idea?
This will happen if the table contains an existing record with an id of 0 (or negative). Updating all existing records to use positive values will allow auto_increment to be set on that column.
Edit: Some people asked how that 0 got in there. For clarification, the MySQL Reference Manual states that "For numeric types, the default is 0, with the exception that for integer or floating-point types declared with the AUTO_INCREMENT attribute, the default is the next value in the sequence." So, if you performed an insert on a table without providing a value for the numeric column before the auto_increment was enabled, then the default 0 would be used during the insert. More details may be found at https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/data-type-defaults.html.
I also had this issue when trying to convert a column to auto_increment where one row had a value of 0. An alternative to changing the 0 value temporarily is via setting:
SET SESSION sql_mode='NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO';
for the session.
This allowed the column to be altered to auto_increment with the zero id in place.
The zero isn't ideal - and I also wouldn't recommend it being used in an auto_increment column. Unfortunately it's part of an inherited data set so I'm stuck with it for now.
Best to clear the setting (and any others) afterwards with:
SET SESSION sql_mode='';
although it will be cleared when the current client session clsoes.
Full details on the 'NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO' setting here.
This happens when MySQL can not determine a proper auto_increment value. In your case, MySQL choose 1 as next auto_increment value, however there is already row with that value in the table.
One way to resolve the issue is to choose a proper auto_increment value yourself:
ALTER TABLE ... CHANGE COLUMN `Id` `Id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT, AUTO_INCREMENT = 123456;
(Note the AUTO_INCREMENT=123456 at the end.)
The easiest way that I have found to solve this issue is to first set the table's AUTO INCREMENT value before altering the column. Just make sure that you set the auto increment value higher than the largest value currently in that column:
ALTER TABLE `aafest`.`aafest_bestelling`
AUTO_INCREMENT = 100,
CHANGE COLUMN `Id` `Id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT
I tested this on MySQL 5.7 and it worked great for me.
Edit: Don't know exactly how that would be caused, but I do have a workaround.
First, create a new table like the old one:
CREATE TABLE aafest_bestelling_new LIKE aafest_bestelling;
Then change the column
ALTER TABLE `aafest`.`aafest_bestelling_new`
CHANGE COLUMN `Id` `Id` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT
Dump in the new data:
INSERT INTO aafest_bestelling_new
(KlantId, Datum, BestellingTypeId)
SELECT
KlantId, Datum, BestellingTypeId
FROM aafest_bestelling;
Move the tables:
RENAME TABLE
aafest_bestelling TO aafest_bestelling_old,
aafest_bestelling_new TO aafest_bestelling;
Maybe there's some corruption going on, and this would fix that as well.
P.S.: As a dutchman, I'd highly recommend coding in english ;)
I had a similar issue. Issue was the table had a record with ID = 0 similar to what SystemParadox pointed out. I handled my issue by the following steps:
Steps:
Update record id 0 to be x where x = MAX(id)+1
Alter table to set primary key and auto increment setting
Set seed value to be x+1
Change record id x back to 0
Code Example:
UPDATE foo SET id = 100 WHERE id = 0;
ALTER TABLE foo MODIFY COLUMN id INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT;
ALTER TABLE foo AUTO_INCREMENT = 101;
UPDATE foo SET id = 0 WHERE id = 100;
This happens because your primary key column already has values.
As the error says ...
ALTER TABLE causes auto_increment resequencing, resulting in duplicate entry '1' for key 'PRIMARY'
which means that your column already has a primary key value 1 which when you auto_increment that column is reassigned causing duplication and hence this error
the solution to this is to remove the primary constraint and then empty the column. Then alter the table setting the primary key again, this time with auto increment.
This error comes because the any table contains an existing record with an id of 0 (or negative). Update all existing records to use positive values will allow auto_increment to be set on that column.
If this didn't work then export all the data and save it any where in you computer and dont first make foreign key relation then fill data in parent table .
This error will also happen if have a MyISAM table that has a composite AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY and are trying to combine the keys
For example
CREATE TABLE test1 (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`ver` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`,`ver`)
) ENGINE=MyISAM DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
INSERT INTO test1 (`id`, `ver`) VALUES (1,NULL),(1,NULL),(1,NULL), (2,NULL),(2,NULL),(2,NULL);
ALTER TABLE test1 DROP PRIMARY KEY, ADD PRIMARY KEY(`ver`);
Not being able to set an existing column to auto_increment also happens if the column you're trying to modify is included in a foreign key relation in another table (although it won't produce the error message referred to in the question).
(I'm adding this answer even though it doesn't relate to the specific error message in the body of the question because this is the first result that shows up on Google when searching for issues relating to not being able to set an existing MySQL column to auto_increment.)