I have been facing to an issue with ON DELETE CASCADE in MySQL. It works perfectly when it is set on a primary key field, but not in other cases.
For example, I have a child table where I have a foreign key referring to a field in the parent table, but the child table has its own Auto-Incremental ID field which needs to be a primary key because grandchildren tables refer to it.
When I delete a row from the parent table, all records disappear as expected and no errors appear, however, the child's data depending on the deleted row of the parent table stays untouched.
I made researches without results. Although I assume it is something to do with the system identifying a row by its primary key, I could not find any relevant info about this.
The parent table:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS table_parent (
ID TINYINT(3) UNSIGNED PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
`level` TINYINT(1) NOT NULL,
updated DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW()
);
The child table:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS table_child (
ID TINYINT(3) UNSIGNED PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
parentId TINYINT(3) UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
`name` VARCHAR(16) UNIQUE NOT NULL,
updated DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW()
);
The relation:
ALTER TABLE table_child
ADD FOREIGN KEY (parentId) REFERENCES table_parent(ID) ON DELETE CASCADE
And in a nutshell, my goal would be to delete all records in table_child table where the parentId equals to the deleted row in table_parent.
Thank you for your help and have a nice day :)
It appears to me that what you are missing is that referential integrity constraints only work with InnoDB tables. Your DDL statements are missing the engine=InnoDB and most likely are defaulting to MyISAM.
While you will not receive an error on the declarations, MyISAM tables are by default what you get when you don't specify an engine, and MyISAM ignores constraint statements.
A corrected CREATE TABLE statement would be:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS table_parent (
ID TINYINT(3) UNSIGNED PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
`level` TINYINT(1) NOT NULL,
updated DATETIME NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW()
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
Here's a SQL Sandbox demonstrating that the constraint is correct and works as you expect it to.
This is not relevant to the question, but it seems odd to me that you declared all your keys to be TINYINTs. That would mean that you could have a maximum of 255 rows in your tables....
I have table1 already in my db.
Table1:
CREATE TABLE `product` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`typename` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
`typecode` varchar(55) DEFAULT NULL,
`parent1` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`parent2` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `parent1` (`parent1`),
KEY `parent2` (`parent2`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=396 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
I tried to create the second table with foreign key which has reference to product.typename
this is the creation query I have used.
CREATE TABLE measurements (
id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
age_group varchar(20) NOT NULL,
article_type varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
dimension text ,
createdOn int(11) NOT NULL,
updatedOn int(11) NOT NULL,
createdBy text NOT NULL,
foreign KEY(article_type) references product(typename)
)ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=396 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
But this table creation is a failure with the following error.
ERROR 1215 (HY000): Cannot add foreign key constraint
I have done show engine innodb\g
------------------------
LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR
------------------------
2015-05-15 19:03:28 131f71000 Error in foreign key constraint of table db/measurements:
foreign KEY(article_type) references product(typename)
)ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=396 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1:
Cannot find an index in the referenced table where the
referenced columns appear as the first columns, or column types
in the table and the referenced table do not match for constraint.
Note that the internal storage type of ENUM and SET changed in
tables created with >= InnoDB-4.1.12, and such columns in old tables
cannot be referenced by such columns in new tables.
See http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.6/en/innodb-foreign-key-constraints.html
for correct foreign key definition.
Can some one point me the problem and what is this first columns concept?
Referenced column should be Primary key. Here
foreign KEY(article_type) references product(typename)
you want to reference with typename column which is not PK.
To do it in properly way you should create table ProductType like this:
CREATE TABLE `ProductType` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`typename` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
`typecode` varchar(55) DEFAULT NULL,
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=396 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
then you can create reference like this:
CREATE TABLE measurements (
id int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
age_group varchar(20) NOT NULL,
IdProductType NOT NULL,
dimension text ,
createdOn int(11) NOT NULL,
updatedOn int(11) NOT NULL,
createdBy text NOT NULL,
foreign KEY(IdProductType) references ProductType(Id)
)ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=396 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1;
Don't forget to do it with Product table.
Above solution is only suggestion, you have to consider your table structure yourself.
A foreign key references a key. This is usually the primary key, but doesn't have to be. In your case however you reference a column (typename) which is not defined as a key. This shows a design flaw.
You decided to use technical IDs as primary keys for your tables. You can do this. But if you do this, keep two things in mind:
You've created IDs in order to link tables easily. So don't reference a record by another column (such as typename), but by its ID.
You must still make sure that the table's natural key is unique.
As to point 2: What is your table's natural key? What is or are the fields that uniquely identify a record (apart from your technically created ID)? Is it typename? Is typename the product's name and must it be unique? Or is this typecode? Whatever it is, give this field a unique constraint, so you cannot have the same product twice in your table.
Maybe it would help you learn to design your database, if you didn't use technical IDs at all. Give it a thought.
Just a side note: Be aware that MySQL has a strange way of using the keyword KEY:
create table t (col int key);
Here KEY really means the table's primary key. col cannot be null and col must be unique. It is short for:
create table t (col int primary key);
However,
create table t (col int, key(col));
is something entirely else. Here, KEY is not short for PRIMARY KEY, but a synonym for INDEX. col can be null, col doesn't have to be unique. So better use the synonym INDEX to make it clear to a reader:
create table t (col int, index(col));
When working with an additional ID, as you are doing, you even need a unique index:
create table t (id int primary key, col int, unique index(col));
or
create table t (id int, col int, primary key(id), unique index(col));
So I'm trying to add Foreign Key constraints to my database as a project requirement and it worked the first time or two on different tables, but I have two tables on which I get an error when trying to add the Foreign Key Constraints.
The error message that I get is:
ERROR 1215 (HY000): Cannot add foreign key constraint
This is the SQL I'm using to create the tables, the two offending tables are Patient and Appointment.
SET #OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS=##UNIQUE_CHECKS, UNIQUE_CHECKS=0;
SET #OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=##FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS, FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=1;
SET #OLD_SQL_MODE=##SQL_MODE, SQL_MODE='TRADITIONAL,ALLOW_INVALID_DATES';
CREATE SCHEMA IF NOT EXISTS `doctorsoffice` DEFAULT CHARACTER SET utf8 ;
USE `doctorsoffice` ;
-- -----------------------------------------------------
-- Table `doctorsoffice`.`doctor`
-- -----------------------------------------------------
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`doctor` ;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`doctor` (
`DoctorID` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`FName` VARCHAR(20) NULL DEFAULT NULL ,
`LName` VARCHAR(20) NULL DEFAULT NULL ,
`Gender` VARCHAR(1) NULL DEFAULT NULL ,
`Specialty` VARCHAR(40) NOT NULL DEFAULT 'General Practitioner' ,
UNIQUE INDEX `DoctorID` (`DoctorID` ASC) ,
PRIMARY KEY (`DoctorID`) )
ENGINE = InnoDB
DEFAULT CHARACTER SET = utf8;
-- -----------------------------------------------------
-- Table `doctorsoffice`.`medicalhistory`
-- -----------------------------------------------------
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`medicalhistory` ;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`medicalhistory` (
`MedicalHistoryID` INT(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`Allergies` TEXT NULL DEFAULT NULL ,
`Medications` TEXT NULL DEFAULT NULL ,
`ExistingConditions` TEXT NULL DEFAULT NULL ,
`Misc` TEXT NULL DEFAULT NULL ,
UNIQUE INDEX `MedicalHistoryID` (`MedicalHistoryID` ASC) ,
PRIMARY KEY (`MedicalHistoryID`) )
ENGINE = InnoDB
DEFAULT CHARACTER SET = utf8;
-- -----------------------------------------------------
-- Table `doctorsoffice`.`Patient`
-- -----------------------------------------------------
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`Patient` ;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`Patient` (
`PatientID` INT unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`FName` VARCHAR(30) NULL ,
`LName` VARCHAR(45) NULL ,
`Gender` CHAR NULL ,
`DOB` DATE NULL ,
`SSN` DOUBLE NULL ,
`MedicalHistory` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
`PrimaryPhysician` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`PatientID`) ,
UNIQUE INDEX `PatientID_UNIQUE` (`PatientID` ASC) ,
CONSTRAINT `FK_MedicalHistory`
FOREIGN KEY (`MEdicalHistory` )
REFERENCES `doctorsoffice`.`medicalhistory` (`MedicalHistoryID` )
ON DELETE CASCADE
ON UPDATE CASCADE,
CONSTRAINT `FK_PrimaryPhysician`
FOREIGN KEY (`PrimaryPhysician` )
REFERENCES `doctorsoffice`.`doctor` (`DoctorID` )
ON DELETE CASCADE
ON UPDATE CASCADE)
ENGINE = InnoDB;
-- -----------------------------------------------------
-- Table `doctorsoffice`.`Appointment`
-- -----------------------------------------------------
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`Appointment` ;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`Appointment` (
`AppointmentID` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`Date` DATE NULL ,
`Time` TIME NULL ,
`Patient` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
`Doctor` smallint(5) unsigned NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`AppointmentID`) ,
UNIQUE INDEX `AppointmentID_UNIQUE` (`AppointmentID` ASC) ,
CONSTRAINT `FK_Patient`
FOREIGN KEY (`Patient` )
REFERENCES `doctorsoffice`.`Patient` (`PatientID` )
ON DELETE CASCADE
ON UPDATE CASCADE,
CONSTRAINT `FK_Doctor`
FOREIGN KEY (`Doctor` )
REFERENCES `doctorsoffice`.`doctor` (`DoctorID` )
ON DELETE CASCADE
ON UPDATE CASCADE)
ENGINE = InnoDB;
-- -----------------------------------------------------
-- Table `doctorsoffice`.`InsuranceCompany`
-- -----------------------------------------------------
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`InsuranceCompany` ;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`InsuranceCompany` (
`InsuranceID` smallint(5) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
`Name` VARCHAR(50) NULL ,
`Phone` DOUBLE NULL ,
PRIMARY KEY (`InsuranceID`) ,
UNIQUE INDEX `InsuranceID_UNIQUE` (`InsuranceID` ASC) )
ENGINE = InnoDB;
-- -----------------------------------------------------
-- Table `doctorsoffice`.`PatientInsurance`
-- -----------------------------------------------------
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`PatientInsurance` ;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `doctorsoffice`.`PatientInsurance` (
`PolicyHolder` smallint(5) NOT NULL ,
`InsuranceCompany` smallint(5) NOT NULL ,
`CoPay` INT NOT NULL DEFAULT 5 ,
`PolicyNumber` smallint(5) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
PRIMARY KEY (`PolicyNumber`) ,
UNIQUE INDEX `PolicyNumber_UNIQUE` (`PolicyNumber` ASC) ,
CONSTRAINT `FK_PolicyHolder`
FOREIGN KEY (`PolicyHolder` )
REFERENCES `doctorsoffice`.`Patient` (`PatientID` )
ON DELETE CASCADE
ON UPDATE CASCADE,
CONSTRAINT `FK_InsuranceCompany`
FOREIGN KEY (`InsuranceCompany` )
REFERENCES `doctorsoffice`.`InsuranceCompany` (`InsuranceID` )
ON DELETE CASCADE
ON UPDATE CASCADE)
ENGINE = InnoDB;
USE `doctorsoffice` ;
SET SQL_MODE=#OLD_SQL_MODE;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=#OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS;
SET UNIQUE_CHECKS=#OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS;
To find the specific error run this:
SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS;
And look in the LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR section.
The data type for the child column must match the parent column exactly. For example, since medicalhistory.MedicalHistoryID is an INT, Patient.MedicalHistory also needs to be an INT, not a SMALLINT.
Also, you should run the query set foreign_key_checks=0 before running the DDL so you can create the tables in an arbitrary order rather than needing to create all parent tables before the relevant child tables.
I had set one field as "Unsigned" and other one not. Once I set both columns to Unsigned it worked.
Engine should be the same e.g. InnoDB
Datatype should be the same, and with same length. e.g. VARCHAR(20)
Collation Columns charset should be the same. e.g. utf8
Watchout: Even if your tables have same Collation, columns still could have different one.
Unique - Foreign key should refer to field that is unique (usually primary key) in the reference table.
Try to use the same type of your primary keys - int(11) - on the foreign keys - smallint(5) - as well.
Hope it helps!
Confirm that the character encoding and collation for the two tables is the same.
In my own case, one of the tables was using utf8 and the other was using latin1.
I had another case where the encoding was the same but the collation different. One utf8_general_ci the other utf8_unicode_ci
You can run this command to set the encoding and collation for a table.
ALTER TABLE tablename CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci;
I hope this helps someone.
To set a FOREIGN KEY in Table B you must set a KEY in the table A.
In table A:
INDEX id (id)
And then in the table B,
CONSTRAINT `FK_id` FOREIGN KEY (`id`) REFERENCES `table-A` (`id`)
I had same problem and the solution was very simple.
Solution : foreign keys declared in table should not set to be not null.
reference : If you specify a SET NULL action, make sure that you have not declared the columns in the child table as NOT NULL. (ref
)
Check following rules :
First checks whether names are given right for table names
Second right data type give to foreign key ?
Please ensure that both the tables are in InnoDB format. Even if one is in MyISAM format, then, foreign key constraint wont work.
Also, another thing is that, both the fields should be of the same type. If one is INT, then the other should also be INT. If one is VARCHAR, the other should also be VARCHAR, etc.
I faced the issue and was able to resolve it by making sure that the data types were exactly matching .
I was using SequelPro for adding the constraint and it was making the primary key as unsigned by default .
Check the signing on both your table columns. If the referring table column is SIGNED, the referenced table column should be SIGNED too.
My problem was that I was trying to create the relation table before other tables!
So you have two ways to fix it:
change the order of MSQL commands
run this before your queries:
SET foreign_key_checks = 0;
NOTE: The following tables were taken from some site when I was doing
some R&D on the database. So the naming convention is not proper.
For me, the problem was, my parent table had the different character set than that of the one which I was creating.
Parent Table (PRODUCTS)
products | CREATE TABLE `products` (
`productCode` varchar(15) NOT NULL,
`productName` varchar(70) NOT NULL,
`productLine` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`productScale` varchar(10) NOT NULL,
`productVendor` varchar(50) NOT NULL,
`productDescription` text NOT NULL,
`quantityInStock` smallint(6) NOT NULL,
`buyPrice` decimal(10,2) NOT NULL,
`msrp` decimal(10,2) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`productCode`),
KEY `productLine` (`productLine`),
CONSTRAINT `products_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`productLine`) REFERENCES `productlines` (`productLine`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
Child Table which had a problem (PRICE_LOGS)
price_logs | CREATE TABLE `price_logs` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`productCode` varchar(15) DEFAULT NULL,
`old_price` decimal(20,2) NOT NULL,
`new_price` decimal(20,2) NOT NULL,
`added_on` datetime NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `productCode` (`productCode`),
CONSTRAINT `price_logs_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`productCode`) REFERENCES `products` (`productCode`) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE
);
MODIFIED TO
price_logs | CREATE TABLE `price_logs` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`productCode` varchar(15) DEFAULT NULL,
`old_price` decimal(20,2) NOT NULL,
`new_price` decimal(20,2) NOT NULL,
`added_on` datetime NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `productCode` (`productCode`),
CONSTRAINT `price_logs_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`productCode`) REFERENCES `products` (`productCode`) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
One additional cause of this error is when your tables or columns contain reserved keywords:
Sometimes one does forget these.
If you are getting this error with PhpMyAdmin, disable foreign key checks before importing the SQL file.
For me the target table was blocking the foreign key.
I had to set Auto-Increment (AI) on the table the Foreign-Key was pointing to.
I had a similar error in creating foreign key in a Many to Many table where the primary key consisted of 2 foreign keys and another normal column. I fixed the issue by correcting the referenced table name i.e. company, as shown in the corrected code below:
create table company_life_cycle__history -- (M-M)
(
company_life_cycle_id tinyint unsigned not null,
Foreign Key (company_life_cycle_id) references company_life_cycle(id) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,
company_id MEDIUMINT unsigned not null,
Foreign Key (company_id) references company(id) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE,
activity_on date NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY pk_company_life_cycle_history (company_life_cycle_id, company_id,activity_on),
created_on datetime DEFAULT NULL,
updated_on datetime DEFAULT NULL,
created_by varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
updated_by varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL
);
I had similar error with two foreign keys for different tables but with same key names! I have renamed keys and the error had gone)
Had a similar error, but in my case I was missing to declare the pk as auto_increment.
Just in case it could be helpful to anyone
I got the same error. The cause in my case was:
I created a backup of a database via phpmyadmin by copying the whole database.
I created a new db with the same name the old db had und selected it.
I started an SQL script to create updated tables and data.
I got the error. Also when I disabled foreign_key_checks. Altough the database was completely empty.
The cause was: Since i used phpmyadmin to create some foreign keys in the renamed database - the foreign keys where created with a database name prefix but the database name prefix was not updated. So there were still references in the backup-db pointing to the newly created db.
My solution is maybe a little embarrassing and tells the tale of why you should sometimes look at what you have in front of you instead of these posts :)
I had ran a forward engineer before, which failed, so that meant that my database already had a few tables, then i have been sitting trying to fix foreign key contraints failures trying to make sure that everything was perfect, but it ran up against the tables previously created, so it was to no prevail.
In my case, there was a syntax error which was not explicitly notified by MySQL console upon running the query. However, SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS command's LATEST FOREIGN KEY ERROR section reported,
Syntax error close to:
REFERENCES`role`(`id`) ON DELETE CASCADE) ENGINE = InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET = utf8
I had to leave a whitespace between REFERENCES and role to make it work.
For me it was - you can't omit prefixing the current DB table if you create a FK for a non-current DB referencing the current DB:
USE currrent_db;
ALTER TABLE other_db.tasks ADD CONSTRAINT tasks_fk FOREIGN KEY (user_id) REFERENCES currrent_db.users (id);
If I omit "currrent_db." for users table, I get the FK error. Interesting that SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS; shows nothing in this case.
My Solution!!
If we want to have column1 of table1 as a foreign key of table2, then column1 should be a key of table1.
For example, consider we have departments table, which has dept_id column.
Now let's say we have another table named employees which has emp_dept_id column.
If we want to use the dept_id column of the department table as a foreign key for the emp_dept_id column of emp, then the dept_id of department table SHOULD ATLEAST BE a key if not a primary key.
So make sure that dept_id of depratment is either a primary key or a unique key before using it as a foreign key for another table.
I had this same issue then i corrected the Engine name as Innodb in both parent and child tables and corrected the reference field name
FOREIGN KEY (c_id) REFERENCES x9o_parent_table(c_id)
then it works fine and the tables are installed correctly. This will be use full for someone.
I'm trying link two tables together using a foreign key. One table is users, the other is userInfo. When I delete a user I also want to delete their info as well. When I delete a user from the users table their entry in usersInfo is still there. I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong.
CREATE TABLE users (
userid INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
username VARCHAR(30) NOT NULL,
email VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
password VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL,
userlevel INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL,
rating int,
organization int(1),
timestamp varchar(20) NOT NULL,
);
Here is my table for userinfo. Yes, I know it could be in the same table. I'm just doing this for an easy example.
CREATE TABLE usersInfo(
userid int auto_increment NOT NULL,
userlocation varchar(50),
about varchar(300),
userkeywords varchar(150),
FOREIGN KEY(userid) REFERENCES users(userid) ON DELETE CASCADE ON UPDATE CASCADE
);
Edit - problem solved. Thanks to everyone who helped.
Added TYPE = InnoDB at the end of the CREATE TABLE statements.
Add ENGINE=INNODB to these CREATE TABLE statements to ensure they're InnoDB tables. MySQL versions below 5.5.5 will default to MyISAM, which does not support foreign-key relationships, but which will not throw an error if you define a foreign-key relationship either.