Insert null if violates a constraint in mysql? - mysql

I have a country and let's say user tables, and in case a submitted country does not match a constraint I want a null go there instead.
create table countries(
ccode char(2), primary key (ccode)
);
create table users(
ccode char(2), foreign key (ccode) references countries(ccode)
);
insert into countries values('ru'),('us'),('hk');
Now if the user submitted an nonexistent code, eg:
insert into users values('xx');
The query would actually fail due to the fk constaint. But I want it to write a null instead. How can we do this?

Answering my own question it looks like this is the way to do it:
(But if you suggest a better answer I will accept it of course)
insert into users values((select ccode from countries where ccode='x'));
^ This will return a code, and a null if it didn't match - which is what I want.

Related

Error: Duplicate entry '1' for key 'students.PRIMARY' Error Code: ER_DUP_ENTRY

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS students (
student_id INT,
name VARCHAR(24),
major VARCHAR(24),
PRIMARY KEY(student_id)
);
SELECT * FROM student;
INSERT INTO students VALUES(1,'Jack','Biology');
You're specifying the primary key (student_id) and from the error it already exists. You have a few options:
Don't specify the primary key. It should be set to autoincrement anyway, assuming that this is the primary table that students are entered into, and from the name of the table (students) it seems like it is. Then the query will be:
INSERT INTO students VALUES('Jack','Biology');
and then the table will autoincrement the primary key to the next pointer.
Use INSERT IGNORE. This will silently fail if you try to insert a student ID that already exists (or on any query that violates unique keys).
INSERT IGNORE INTO students VALUES(1, 'Jack','Biology');
This will not cause table changes, but it will also not cause an error that interrupts the script, and it will insert any rows that don't fail, say if you had multiple values inserted. The plain INSERT will fail for the entire list, not just the erroneous value.
Use ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE. This will update a list of values if it encounters a duplicate key.
INSERT INTO students VALUES(1, 'Jack','Biology')
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE name = values(name), major = values(major);
In this case, you will change the values in the table that match the key. In this case, whichever student is student_id 1 will have its name and major updated to the supplied values. For instance, let's say that Jack changed his major to Chemistry. This would update student_id 1 to Jack, Chemistry and reflect his new major.
Use REPLACE INTO. I avoid this one. It is similar to ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE, but it removes the old entry and replaces it with a new one with a new ID. This can cause you problems with foreign keys, and also if you have a small primary key and you constantly replace into it, you can end up with a primary id that's bigger than the limits you set.
Well, your student_id is primary key, clearly that table is already exist with some data with student_id=1 hence you cannot insert another row with the same primary key value.

Adding primary/foreign keys and referencing other tables

Im having some troubles with key referencing. The Error comes from when i try to insert data into Table Mark
INSERT INTO Mark(examID, studentID, result, occured, noOFAttempts)
VALUES ('B10', '1', '67', '11-JUL-07', '1');
I get the error:
integrity constraint violated - parent key
not found
Context :
The tables Exam and Student represent data about college exams and
students. The exam results for the students, including the number of
attempts a student has had at an exam (noOfAttempts), are recorded in
table Mark by using the id column from Exam and the id column from
Student. Both id columns have unique values . A student has only the
latest result recorded for each exam.
Write a SQL command to create the Mark table. Include the primary keys
and foreign keys apparent in the tables specified above.
CREATE TABLE Exam (
id VARCHAR(255),
subject VARCHAR(255),
noOfStudents INT,
PRIMARY KEY (id));
-
CREATE TABLE Student (
id INT,
name VARCHAR(255),
PRIMARY KEY (id));
-
CREATE TABLE Mark (
examID VARCHAR(255),
studentID INT,
result INT,
occured DATE,
noOFAttempts VARCHAR(255),
FOREIGN KEY (noOFAttempts) REFERENCES Exam(id),
FOREIGN KEY (noOFAttempts) REFERENCES Student(id));
How do i fix the error i know its to do with wrong referencing, thanks
Some of the logic behind the Mark table makes sense to me. It relates exams to the students who took those exams. But the motivation to make noOfAttempts a foreign key does not seem to serve much purpose. There are two foreign keys in that table, examID and studentID, and the combination of these two fields is also a primary key. Here is what the Mark definition might look like to avoid these errors:
CREATE TABLE Mark (
examID VARCHAR(255),
studentID INT,
result INT,
occured DATE,
noOFAttempts VARCHAR(255),
FOREIGN KEY (examID) REFERENCES Exam(id),
FOREIGN KEY (studentID) REFERENCES Student(id),
PRIMARY KEY (examID, studentID)
)
Again, I don't see the point of making noOfAttempts a key of any kind, rather I think it should just be one regular column in the Mark table.
Edit per request from Gordon:
When you made your insert, you attempted to create a record in Mark which referred to parent records which did not exist. In the case of your original table, you attempted to insert '1' as the noOfAttempts, but this ID did not exist in either the Exam and/or Student tables.

INSERT if exists UPDATE

I've been looking at other resources and am just getting a bit confused. I'd like to relate an example to my problem.
I have a game server which stores a unique id from steam in a database, and along with this has a column for specific permissions to that user. E.g id: 712309123810 permission: default
What I want to achieve is sending data from a form; $Id and $permission are posted. Insert this data into the database under columns for example sake; 'Id' and 'permission'. I can do this, what I am having issues is understanding how to UPDATE only the $permission column if the $id already exists in the db.
I have read about ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE , but am confused about how to correctly utilize it. I am fairly new to mysql.
Thanks for your time.
The on duplicate key fires when the insert part of the statement violates a unique constraint (in your case - the primary key on id). So, to put it all together:
INSERT INTO mytbale (id, permissions)
VALUES (:id, :permissions)
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE permissions = :permissions
It's explained rather well by the manual:
http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/insert-on-duplicate.html
Your query might be something like:
INSERT INTO myTable (id, permissions) VALUES (712309123810, "default")
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE permissions = "default";
This requires that the table contains a unique or primary key on the id column.
Normally, if you attempt to insert a new row that would create a duplicate value for a unique or primary key, it is an error. Using ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE changes that: instead, your insert transforms into an update.
The example query I gave will insert a new record if none with that id exists, or it will update the permissions of the existing one.
Typically, an id can have multiple permissions. If so, you don't want to overwrite the permissions; you want to accumulate them. If this is the case, you might need junction table to handle this:
create table UserPermissions (
UserPermissionsId int auto_increment primary key,
UserId int not null,
PermissionId int not null,
constraint fk_UserPermissions_UserId foreign key UserId references Users(UserId),
constraints fk_UserPermissions_PermissionId foreign key Permissions references Permissions (PermissionId)
);
If a user has only one permission that gets overwritten, then on duplicate key update is appropriate.

MySQL if exists update else create new

I have a vet table and a medical table with a 1 to many relationship, and the ID's are auto incremented.
CREATE TABLE vet(
vetID INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
vetPractice varchar(35),
Address varchar(150),
contactNumber varchar (15),
PRIMARY KEY (VetID)
);
CREATE TABLE medical(
medicalID INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
medication VARCHAR (200),
PRIMARY KEY (medicalID),
FOREIGN KEY (vetID) REFERENCES vet(vetID)
);
Users can enter details of a vet, i want a query to determine;
if the the vet details entered already exist, then update the foreign key in vetID(medical) with the entered vetID.
else if the vet does not exist create a new vet and update the foreign key in vetID(medical) with the newly created vetID.
You want to do an upsert in MySql. I think that this link can be helpful.
Example:
INSERT INTO table (x,x,x) VALUES (x,x,x)
ON DUPLICATE KEY UPDATE x=x+x;
You have to do a "select" query to determine whether exists .
Select medicalID from medical where medication=?
This should be executed in a different query as the update , you need to use server language to see if the results brings back a result.Then using an "if" statement determine your routine.
hope this helps.

mysql opposite of foreign key

I have 2 tables, customers and affiliates. I need to make sure that customers.email and affiliates.email are exclusive. In other words, a person cannot be both a customer and an affiliate. It's basically the opposite of a foreign key. Is there a way to do this?
You can use a table that stores emails and have unique constrain on the email, and reference that table from the customer and affiliate. (still need to ensure that there are no 2 records referencing the same key)
You can use trigger before insert and before update to check if the email is not present.
Or you can leave this validation to the application logic - not in the database, but in the applicationc ode.
There is no key you can do this with, but it sounds like you shouldn't be using two tables. Instead, you can have one table with either customer/affiliate data (that needs to be unique in this table) and another table that has the type (customer/affiliate).
CREATE TABLE People (
pplid,
pplEmail,
ptid,
UNIQUE KEY (pplEmail)
)
CREATE TABLE PeopleType (
ptid,
ptType
)
INSERT INTO PeopleType VALUES (1, 'affiliates'), (2, 'customers');
You can try the following.
Create a new table, which will be a master for customers and affiliates:
CREATE TABLE party
(
id int not null auto_increment primary key ,
party_type enum('customer','affiliate') not null,
email varchar(100),
UNIQUE (id,party_type)
);
--Then
CREATE TABLE customer
(
....
party_id INT NOT NULL,
party_type enum('customer') NOT NULL DEFAULT 'customer',
PRIMARY KEY (party_id,party_type)
FOREIGN KEY (party_id,party_type) REFERENCES party(id,party_type)
);
CREATE TABLE affiliates
(
....
party_id INT NOT NULL,
party_type enum('affiliate') NOT NULL DEFAULT 'affiliate',
PRIMARY KEY (party_id,party_type)
FOREIGN KEY (party_id,party_type) REFERENCES party(id,party_type)
)
-- enum is used because mysql still doesn't have CHECK constraints
This way each party can be only of one type