Question

I have a multi-row insert that looks something like:

insert into table VALUES
(1, 2, 3),
(4, 5, 6),
(7, 8, 9);

Assume the first attribute (1, 4, 7) is a foreign key to another table and assume that this referenced table does not have the value ‘4’. A MySQLExeption is thrown with error code 1452.

EXCEPTION: Cannot add or update a child row: a foreign key constraint fails (dbName/tableName, CONSTRAINT id FOREIGN KEY (customer_id) REFERENCES referencedTable (customer_id))

Is there a way to identify which value caused the error? I would love to give my user an error message that said something like:

Error: '4' does not exist in the referenced table. 

I am using the .NET mysql connector to execute the insert.

Thanks-

Jonathan

Answer 1

One option could be to query the referenced table first.

select id from referencedTable where id not in (1, 4, 7)

It seems that there should be a cleaner way…