Skip to Content
SQL Antipatterns, Volume 1
book

SQL Antipatterns, Volume 1

by Bill Karwin
October 2022
Intermediate to advanced
380 pages
9h 35m
English
Pragmatic Bookshelf
Content preview from SQL Antipatterns, Volume 1

MySQL Foreign Keys to Non-Unique Indexes

In standard SQL, the columns referenced by a foreign key must be the PRIMARY KEY or a UNIQUE KEY of the Parent table. InnoDB supports a non-standard feature: a foreign key does not have to include the whole set of columns in the referenced key. The foreign key is also allowed to reference a non-unique index in the parent table, instead of a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE KEY. The only rule is that the columns referenced by the foreign key must be the left-most columns of a key or index. Otherwise you get an error that tells you no index was found in the Parent table with those columns as the left-most columns.

 CREATE​ ​TABLE​ Parent (
  parent_id1 ​INT​,
  parent_id2 ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

SQL Antipatterns

SQL Antipatterns

Bill Karwin
SQL in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

SQL in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

Kevin Kline, Regina O. Obe, Leo S. Hsu
SQL Cookbook, 2nd Edition

SQL Cookbook, 2nd Edition

Anthony Molinaro, Robert de Graaf

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9798888650011Errata Page