Question

I want to add a Foreign Key to a table called “katalog”.

ALTER TABLE katalog 
ADD CONSTRAINT `fk_katalog_sprache` 
FOREIGN KEY (`Sprache`)
REFERENCES `Sprache` (`ID`)
ON DELETE SET NULL
ON UPDATE SET NULL;

When I try to do this, I get this error message:

Error Code: 1005. Can't create table 'mytable.#sql-7fb1_7d3a' (errno: 150)

Error in INNODB Status:

120405 14:02:57 Error in foreign key constraint of table
mytable.#sql-7fb1_7d3a:

FOREIGN KEY (`Sprache`)
REFERENCES `Sprache` (`ID`)
ON DELETE SET NULL
ON UPDATE SET NULL:
Cannot resolve table name close to:
(`ID`)
ON DELETE SET NULL
ON UPDATE SET NULL

When i use this query it works, but with wrong “on delete” action:

ALTER TABLE `katalog` 
ADD FOREIGN KEY (`Sprache` ) REFERENCES `sprache` (`ID` )

Both tables are InnoDB and both fields are “INT(11) not null”. I’m using MySQL 5.1.61. Trying to fire this ALTER Query with MySQL Workbench (newest) on a MacBook Pro.

Table Create Statements:

CREATE TABLE `katalog` (
`ID` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`Name` varchar(50) COLLATE utf8_unicode_ci NOT NULL,
`AnzahlSeiten` int(4) unsigned NOT NULL,
`Sprache` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`ID`),
UNIQUE KEY `katalogname_uq` (`Name`)
 ) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=12 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci ROW_FORMAT=DYNAMIC$$

CREATE TABLE `sprache` (
`ID` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
 `Bezeichnung` varchar(45) NOT NULL,
 PRIMARY KEY (`ID`),
 UNIQUE KEY `Bezeichnung_UNIQUE` (`Bezeichnung`),
KEY `ix_sprache_id` (`ID`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=3 DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8

Answer 1

To add a foreign key (grade_id) to an existing table (users), follow the following steps:

ALTER TABLE users ADD grade_id SMALLINT UNSIGNED NOT NULL DEFAULT 0;
ALTER TABLE users ADD CONSTRAINT fk_grade_id FOREIGN KEY (grade_id) REFERENCES grades(id);