Chapter 13. SQL Statement Syntax

Table of Contents

13.1. Data Definition Statements
13.1.1. ALTER DATABASE Syntax
13.1.2. ALTER TABLE Syntax
13.1.3. ALTER LOGFILE GROUP Syntax
13.1.4. ALTER TABLESPACE Syntax
13.1.5. ALTER SERVER Syntax
13.1.6. CREATE DATABASE Syntax
13.1.7. CREATE INDEX Syntax
13.1.8. CREATE TABLE Syntax
13.1.9. CREATE LOGFILE GROUP Syntax
13.1.10. CREATE TABLESPACE Syntax
13.1.11. CREATE SERVER Syntax
13.1.12. DROP DATABASE Syntax
13.1.13. DROP INDEX Syntax
13.1.14. DROP TABLE Syntax
13.1.15. DROP LOGFILE GROUP Syntax
13.1.16. DROP TABLESPACE Syntax
13.1.17. DROP SERVER Syntax
13.1.18. RENAME DATABASE Syntax
13.1.19. RENAME TABLE Syntax
13.2. Data Manipulation Statements
13.2.1. DELETE Syntax
13.2.2. DO Syntax
13.2.3. HANDLER Syntax
13.2.4. INSERT Syntax
13.2.5. LOAD DATA INFILE Syntax
13.2.6. REPLACE Syntax
13.2.7. SELECT Syntax
13.2.8. Subquery Syntax
13.2.9. TRUNCATE Syntax
13.2.10. UPDATE Syntax
13.3. MySQL Utility Statements
13.3.1. DESCRIBE Syntax
13.3.2. HELP Syntax
13.3.3. USE Syntax
13.4. MySQL Transactional and Locking Statements
13.4.1. START TRANSACTION, COMMIT, and ROLLBACK Syntax
13.4.2. Statements That Cannot Be Rolled Back
13.4.3. Statements That Cause an Implicit Commit
13.4.4. SAVEPOINT and ROLLBACK TO SAVEPOINT Syntax
13.4.5. LOCK TABLES and UNLOCK TABLES Syntax
13.4.6. SET TRANSACTION Syntax
13.4.7. XA Transactions
13.5. Database Administration Statements
13.5.1. Account Management Statements
13.5.2. Table Maintenance Statements
13.5.3. SET Syntax
13.5.4. SHOW Syntax
13.5.5. Other Administrative Statements
13.6. Replication Statements
13.6.1. SQL Statements for Controlling Master Servers
13.6.2. SQL Statements for Controlling Slave Servers
13.7. SQL Syntax for Prepared Statements

This chapter describes the syntax for most of the SQL statements supported by MySQL. Additional statement descriptions can be found in the following chapters:

13.1. Data Definition Statements

13.1.1. ALTER DATABASE Syntax

ALTER {DATABASE | SCHEMA} [db_name]
    alter_specification [alter_specification] ...

alter_specification:
    [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name
  | [DEFAULT] COLLATE collation_name

ALTER DATABASE enables you to change the overall characteristics of a database. These characteristics are stored in the db.opt file in the database directory. To use ALTER DATABASE, you need the ALTER privilege on the database. ALTER SCHEMA is a synonym for ALTER DATABASE.

The CHARACTER SET clause changes the default database character set. The COLLATE clause changes the default database collation. Chapter 10, Character Set Support, discusses character set and collation names.

The database name can be omitted, in which case the statement applies to the default database.

MySQL Enterprise In a production environment, alteration of a database is not a common occurrence and may indicate a security breach. Advisors provided as part of the MySQL Network Monitoring and Advisory Service automatically alert you when data definition statements are issued. For more information see, http://www.mysql.com/products/enterprise/advisors.html.

13.1.2. ALTER TABLE Syntax

ALTER [IGNORE] TABLE tbl_name
    alter_specification [, alter_specification] ...

alter_specification:
    table_option ...
  | ADD [COLUMN] column_definition [FIRST | AFTER col_name ]
  | ADD [COLUMN] (column_definition,...)
  | ADD {INDEX|KEY} [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]]
        PRIMARY KEY [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]]
        UNIQUE [INDEX|KEY] [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
  | ADD FULLTEXT [INDEX|KEY] [index_name] (index_col_name,...)
      [WITH PARSER parser_name]
  | ADD SPATIAL [INDEX|KEY] [index_name] (index_col_name,...)
  | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]]
        FOREIGN KEY [index_name] (index_col_name,...)
        [reference_definition]
  | ALTER [COLUMN] col_name {SET DEFAULT literal | DROP DEFAULT}
  | CHANGE [COLUMN] old_col_name column_definition
        [FIRST|AFTER col_name]
  | MODIFY [COLUMN] column_definition [FIRST | AFTER col_name]
  | DROP [COLUMN] col_name
  | DROP PRIMARY KEY
  | DROP {INDEX|KEY} index_name
  | DROP FOREIGN KEY fk_symbol
  | DISABLE KEYS
  | ENABLE KEYS
  | RENAME [TO] new_tbl_name
  | ORDER BY col_name [, col_name] ...
  | CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET charset_name [COLLATE collation_name]
  | [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name [COLLATE collation_name]
  | DISCARD TABLESPACE
  | IMPORT TABLESPACE
  | PARTITION BY partition_options
  | ADD PARTITION (partition_definition)
  | DROP PARTITION partition_names
  | COALESCE PARTITION number
  | REORGANIZE PARTITION partition_names INTO (partition_definitions)
  | ANALYZE PARTITION partition_names
  | CHECK PARTITION partition_names
  | OPTIMIZE PARTITION partition_names
  | REBUILD PARTITION partition_names
  | REPAIR PARTITION partition_names
  | REMOVE PARTITIONING

index_col_name:
    col_name [(length)] [ASC | DESC]

index_type:
    USING {BTREE | HASH}

ALTER TABLE enables you to change the structure of an existing table. For example, you can add or delete columns, create or destroy indexes, change the type of existing columns, or rename columns or the table itself. You can also change the comment for the table and type of the table.

The syntax for many of the allowable alterations is similar to clauses of the CREATE TABLE statement. See Section 13.1.8, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”, for more information.

Some operations may result in warnings if attempted on a table for which the storage engine does not support the operation. These warnings can be displayed with SHOW WARNINGS. See Section 13.5.4.31, “SHOW WARNINGS Syntax”.

In most cases, ALTER TABLE works by making a temporary copy of the original table. The alteration is performed on the copy, and then the original table is deleted and the new one is renamed. While ALTER TABLE is executing, the original table is readable by other clients. Updates and writes to the table are stalled until the new table is ready, and then are automatically redirected to the new table without any failed updates.

In some cases, no temporary table is necessary:

  • If you use ALTER TABLE tbl_name RENAME TO new_tbl_name without any other options, MySQL simply renames any files that correspond to the table tbl_name. (You can also use the RENAME TABLE statement to rename tables. See Section 13.1.19, “RENAME TABLE Syntax”.) Any privileges granted specifically for the renamed table are not migrated to the new name. They must be changed manually.

  • ALTER TABLE ... ADD PARTITION creates no temporary table except for MySQL Cluster. ADD or DROP operations for RANGE or LIST partitions are immediate operations or nearly so. ADD or COALESCE operations for HASH or KEY partitions copy data between changed partitions; unless LINEAR HASH/KEY was used, this is much the same as creating a new table (although the operation is done partition by partition). REORGANIZE operations copy only changed partitions and do not touch unchanged ones.

If other cases, MySQL creates a temporary table, even if the data wouldn't strictly need to be copied (such as when you change the name of a column). For MyISAM tables, you can speed up the index re-creation operation (which is the slowest part of the alteration process) by setting the myisam_sort_buffer_size system variable to a high value.

  • To use ALTER TABLE, you need ALTER, INSERT, and CREATE privileges for the table.

  • IGNORE is a MySQL extension to standard SQL. It controls how ALTER TABLE works if there are duplicates on unique keys in the new table or if warnings occur when strict mode is enabled. If IGNORE is not specified, the copy is aborted and rolled back if duplicate-key errors occur. If IGNORE is specified, only the first row is used of rows with duplicates on a unique key, The other conflicting rows are deleted. Incorrect values are truncated to the closest matching acceptable value.

  • table_option signifies a table option of the kind that can be used in the CREATE TABLE statement. (Section 13.1.8, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”, lists all table options.) This includes options such as ENGINE, AUTO_INCREMENT, and AVG_ROW_LENGTH. However, ALTER TABLE ignores the DATA DIRECTORY and INDEX DIRECTORY table options.

    For example, to convert a table to be an InnoDB table, use this statement:

    ALTER TABLE t1 ENGINE = InnoDB;
    

    As of MySQL 5.1.11, to prevent inadvertent loss of data, ALTER TABLE cannot be used to change the storage engine of a table to MERGE or BLACKHOLE.

    To change the value of the AUTO_INCREMENT counter to be used for new rows, do this:

    ALTER TABLE t2 AUTO_INCREMENT = value;
    

    You cannot reset the counter to a value less than or equal to any that have already been used. For MyISAM, if the value is less than or equal to the maximum value currently in the AUTO_INCREMENT column, the value is reset to the current maximum plus one. For InnoDB, if the value is less than the current maximum value in the column, no error message is given and the current sequence value is not changed.

  • You can issue multiple ADD, ALTER, DROP, and CHANGE clauses in a single ALTER TABLE statement, separated by commas. This is a MySQL extension to standard SQL, which allows only one of each clause per ALTER TABLE statement. For example, to drop multiple columns in a single statement, do this:

    ALTER TABLE t2 DROP COLUMN c, DROP COLUMN d;
    
  • CHANGE col_name, DROP col_name, and DROP INDEX are MySQL extensions to standard SQL.

  • MODIFY is an Oracle extension to ALTER TABLE.

  • The word COLUMN is optional and can be omitted.

  • column_definition clauses use the same syntax for ADD and CHANGE as for CREATE TABLE. Note that this syntax includes the column name, not just its data type. See Section 13.1.8, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”.

  • You can rename a column using a CHANGE old_col_name column_definition clause. To do so, specify the old and new column names and the type that the column currently has. For example, to rename an INTEGER column from a to b, you can do this:

    ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE a b INTEGER;
    

    If you want to change a column's type but not the name, CHANGE syntax still requires an old and new column name, even if they are the same. For example:

    ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE b b BIGINT NOT NULL;
    

    You can also use MODIFY to change a column's type without renaming it:

    ALTER TABLE t1 MODIFY b BIGINT NOT NULL;
    
  • If you use CHANGE or MODIFY to shorten a column for which an index exists on the column, and the resulting column length is less than the index length, MySQL shortens the index automatically.

  • When you change a data type using CHANGE or MODIFY, MySQL tries to convert existing column values to the new type as well as possible.

  • To add a column at a specific position within a table row, use FIRST or AFTER col_name. The default is to add the column last. You can also use FIRST and AFTER in CHANGE or MODIFY operations.

  • ALTER ... SET DEFAULT or ALTER ... DROP DEFAULT specify a new default value for a column or remove the old default value, respectively. If the old default is removed and the column can be NULL, the new default is NULL. If the column cannot be NULL, MySQL assigns a default value, as described in Section 11.1.4, “Data Type Default Values”.

  • DROP INDEX removes an index. This is a MySQL extension to standard SQL. See Section 13.1.13, “DROP INDEX Syntax”.

  • If columns are dropped from a table, the columns are also removed from any index of which they are a part. If all columns that make up an index are dropped, the index is dropped as well.

  • If a table contains only one column, the column cannot be dropped. If what you intend is to remove the table, use DROP TABLE instead.

  • DROP PRIMARY KEY drops the primary index. Note: In older versions of MySQL, if no primary index existed, DROP PRIMARY KEY would drop the first UNIQUE index in the table. This is not the case in MySQL 5.1, where trying to use DROP PRIMARY KEY on a table with no primary key results in an error.

    If you add a UNIQUE INDEX or PRIMARY KEY to a table, it is stored before any non-unique index so that MySQL can detect duplicate keys as early as possible.

  • Some storage engines allow you to specify an index type when creating an index. The syntax for the index_type specifier is USING type_name. Before MySQL 5.1.10, USING can be given only before the index column list. As of 5.1.10, the preferred position is after the column list. Use of the option before the column list will no longer be recognized as of MySQL 5.3.

  • ORDER BY enables you to create the new table with the rows in a specific order. Note that the table does not remain in this order after inserts and deletes. This option is useful primarily when you know that you are mostly to query the rows in a certain order most of the time. By using this option after major changes to the table, you might be able to get higher performance. In some cases, it might make sorting easier for MySQL if the table is in order by the column that you want to order it by later.

    ORDER BY syntax allows for one or more column names to be specified for sorting, each of which optionally can be followed by ASC or DESC to indicate ascending or descending sort order, respectively. The default is ascending order. Only column names are allowed as sort criteria; arbitrary expressions are not allowed.

  • If you use ALTER TABLE on a MyISAM table, all non-unique indexes are created in a separate batch (as for REPAIR TABLE). This should make ALTER TABLE much faster when you have many indexes.

    This feature can be activated explicitly. ALTER TABLE ... DISABLE KEYS tells MySQL to stop updating non-unique indexes for a MyISAM table. ALTER TABLE ... ENABLE KEYS then should be used to re-create missing indexes. MySQL does this with a special algorithm that is much faster than inserting keys one by one, so disabling keys before performing bulk insert operations should give a considerable speedup. Using ALTER TABLE ... DISABLE KEYS requires the INDEX privilege in addition to the privileges mentioned earlier.

    While the non-unique indexes are disabled, they are ignored for statements such as SELECT and EXPLAIN that otherwise would use them.

    ENABLE KEYS and DISABLE KEYS were not supported for partitioned tables prior to MySQL 5.1.11. (Bug#19502)

  • The FOREIGN KEY and REFERENCES clauses are supported by the InnoDB storage engine, which implements ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] FOREIGN KEY (...) REFERENCES ... (...). See Section 14.5.6.4, “FOREIGN KEY Constraints”. For other storage engines, the clauses are parsed but ignored. The CHECK clause is parsed but ignored by all storage engines. See Section 13.1.8, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”. The reason for accepting but ignoring syntax clauses is for compatibility, to make it easier to port code from other SQL servers, and to run applications that create tables with references. See Section 1.9.5, “MySQL Differences from Standard SQL”.

    You cannot add a foreign key and drop a foreign key in separate clauses of a single ALTER TABLE statement. You must use separate statements.

  • InnoDB supports the use of ALTER TABLE to drop foreign keys:

    ALTER TABLE tbl_name DROP FOREIGN KEY fk_symbol;
    

    You cannot add a foreign key and drop a foreign key in separate clauses of a single ALTER TABLE statement. You must use separate statements.

    For more information, see Section 14.5.6.4, “FOREIGN KEY Constraints”.

  • Pending INSERT DELAYED statements are lost if a table is write locked and ALTER TABLE is used to modify the table structure.

  • If you want to change the table default character set and all character columns (CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT) to a new character set, use a statement like this:

    ALTER TABLE tbl_name CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET charset_name;
    

    Warning: The preceding operation converts column values between the character sets. This is not what you want if you have a column in one character set (like latin1) but the stored values actually use some other, incompatible character set (like utf8). In this case, you have to do the following for each such column:

    ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE c1 c1 BLOB;
    ALTER TABLE t1 CHANGE c1 c1 TEXT CHARACTER SET utf8;
    

    The reason this works is that there is no conversion when you convert to or from BLOB columns.

    If you specify CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET binary, the CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns are converted to their corresponding binary string types (BINARY, VARBINARY, BLOB). This means that the columns no longer will have a character set and a subsequent CONVERT TO operation will not apply to them.

    To change only the default character set for a table, use this statement:

    ALTER TABLE tbl_name DEFAULT CHARACTER SET charset_name;
    

    The word DEFAULT is optional. The default character set is the character set that is used if you do not specify the character set for a new column which you add to a table (for example, with ALTER TABLE ... ADD column).

  • For an InnoDB table that is created with its own tablespace in an .ibd file, that file can be discarded and imported. To discard the .ibd file, use this statement:

    ALTER TABLE tbl_name DISCARD TABLESPACE;
    

    This deletes the current .ibd file, so be sure that you have a backup first. Attempting to access the table while the tablespace file is discarded results in an error.

    To import the backup .ibd file back into the table, copy it into the database directory, and then issue this statement:

    ALTER TABLE tbl_name IMPORT TABLESPACE;
    

    See Section 14.5.3.1, “Using Per-Table Tablespaces”.

  • A number of partitioning-related extensions to ALTER TABLE were added in MySQL 5.1.5. These can be used with partitioned tables for repartitioning, for adding, dropping, merging, and splitting partitions, and for performing partitioning maintenance.

    Simply using a partition_options clause with ALTER TABLE on a partitioned table repartitions the table according to the partitioning scheme defined by the partition_options. This clause always begins with PARTITION BY, and follows the same syntax and other rules as apply to the partition_options clause for CREATE TABLE (see Section 13.1.8, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”, for more detailed information), and can also be used to partition an existing table that is not already partitioned. For example, consider a (non-partitioned) table defined as shown here:

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
        id INT,
        year_col INT
    );
    

    This table can be partitioned by HASH, using the id column as the partitioning key, into 8 partitions by means of this statement:

    ALTER TABLE t1
        PARTITION BY HASH(id)
        PARTITIONS 8;
    

    The table that results from using an ALTER TABLE ... PARTITION BY statement must follow the same rules as one created using CREATE TABLE ... PARTITION BY. This includes the rules governing the relationship between any unique keys (including any primary key) that the table might have, and the column or columns used in the partitioning expression, as discussed in Partitioning Limitations: Partitioning Keys and Unique Keys. The CREATE TABLE ... PARTITION BY rules for specifying the number of partitions also apply to ALTER TABLE ... PARTITION BY.

    ALTER TABLE ... PARTITION BY became available in MySQL 5.1.6.

    The partition_definition clause for ALTER TABLE ADD PARTITION supports the same options as the clause of the same name does for the CREATE TABLE statement clause of the same name. (See Section 13.1.8, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”, for the syntax and description.) Suppose that you have the partitioned table created as shown here:

    CREATE TABLE t1 (
        id INT,
        year_col INT
    )
    PARTITION BY RANGE (year_col) (
        PARTITION p0 VALUES LESS THAN (1991),
        PARTITION p1 VALUES LESS THAN (1995),
        PARTITION p2 VALUES LESS THAN (1999)
    );
    

    You can add a new partition p3 to this table for storing values less then 2002 as follows:

    ALTER TABLE t1 ADD PARTITION (PARTITION p3 VALUES LESS THAN (2002));
    

    DROP PARTITION can be used to drop one or more RANGE or LIST partitions. This statement cannot be used with HASH or KEY partitions; instead, use COALESCE PARTITION (see below). Any data that was stored in the dropped partitions named in the partition_names list is discarded. For example, given the table t1 defined previously, you can drop the partitions named p0 and p1 as shown here:

    ALTER TABLE t1 DROP PARTITION p0, p1;
    

    Note that DROP PARTITION does not work with tables that use the NDB Cluster storage engine. See Section 16.3.1, “Management of RANGE and LIST Partitions”, and Section 15.14, “Known Limitations of MySQL Cluster”.

    ADD PARTITION and DROP PARTITION do not currently support IF [NOT] EXISTS. It is also not possible to rename a partition or a partitioned table. Instead, if you wish to rename a partition, you must drop and re-create the partition; if you wish to rename a partitioned table, you must instead drop all partitions, rename the table, and then add back the partitions that were dropped.

    COALESCE PARTITION can be used with a table that is partitioned by HASH or KEY to reduce the number of partitions by number. Suppose that you have created table t2 using the following definition:

    CREATE TABLE t2 (
        name VARCHAR (30),
        started DATE
    )
    PARTITION BY HASH( YEAR(started) )
    PARTITIONS 6;
    

    You can reduce the number of partitions used by t2 from 6 to 4 using the following statement:

    ALTER TABLE t2 COALESCE PARTITION 2;
    

    The data contained in the last number partitions will be merged into the remaining partitions. In this case, partitions 4 and 5 will be merged into the first 4 partitions (the partitions numbered 0, 1, 2, and 3.

    To change some but not all the partitions used by a partitioned table, you can use REORGANIZE PARTITION. This statement can be used in several ways:

    • To merge a set of partitions into a single partition. This can be done by naming several partitions in the partition_names list and supplying a single definition for partition_definition.

    • To split an existing partition into several partitions. You can accomplish this by naming a single partition for partition_names and providing multiple partition_definitions.

    • To change the ranges for a subset of partitions defined using VALUES LESS THAN or the value lists for a subset of partitions defined using VALUES IN.

    Note: For partitions that have not been explicitly named, MySQL automatically provides the default names p0, p1, p2, and so on. As of MySQL 5.1.7, the same is true with regard to subpartitions.

    For more detailed information about and examples of ALTER TABLE ... REORGANIZE PARTITION statements, see Section 16.3, “Partition Management”.

  • Several additional clauses provide partition maintenance and repair functionality analogous to that implemented for non-partitioned tables by statements such as CHECK TABLE and REPAIR TABLE (which are not supported for partitioned tables). These include ANALYZE PARTITION, CHECK PARTITION, OPTIMIZE PARTITION, REBUILD PARTITION, and REPAIR PARTITION. Each of these options takes a partition_names clause consisting of one or more names of partitions, separated by commas. The partitions must already exist in the table to be altered. For more information, and for examples of these, see Section 16.3.3, “Maintenance of Partitions”.

  • REMOVE PARTITIONING was introduced in MySQL 5.1.8 for the purpose of removing a table's partitioning without otherwise affecting the table or its data. (Previously. this was done using the ENGINE option.) This option can be combined with other ALTER TABLE options such as those used to add, drop, or rename drop columns or indexes.

    In MySQL 5.1.7 and earlier, using the ENGINE option with ALTER TABLE caused any partitioning that a table might have had to be removed. Beginning with MySQL 5.1.8, this option merely changes the storage engine used by the table and no longer affects partitioning in any way.

With the mysql_info() C API function, you can find out how many rows were copied, and (when IGNORE is used) how many rows were deleted due to duplication of unique key values. See Section 24.2.3.35, “mysql_info().

Here are some examples that show uses of ALTER TABLE. Begin with a table t1 that is created as shown here:

CREATE TABLE t1 (a INTEGER,b CHAR(10));

To rename the table from t1 to t2:

ALTER TABLE t1 RENAME t2;

To change column a from INTEGER to TINYINT NOT NULL (leaving the name the same), and to change column b from CHAR(10) to CHAR(20) as well as renaming it from b to c:

ALTER TABLE t2 MODIFY a TINYINT NOT NULL, CHANGE b c CHAR(20);

To add a new TIMESTAMP column named d:

ALTER TABLE t2 ADD d TIMESTAMP;

To add indexes on column d and on column a:

ALTER TABLE t2 ADD INDEX (d), ADD INDEX (a);

To remove column c:

ALTER TABLE t2 DROP COLUMN c;

To add a new AUTO_INCREMENT integer column named c:

ALTER TABLE t2 ADD c INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  ADD PRIMARY KEY (c);

Note that we indexed c (as a PRIMARY KEY), because AUTO_INCREMENT columns must be indexed, and also that we declare c as NOT NULL, because primary key columns cannot be NULL.

When you add an AUTO_INCREMENT column, column values are filled in with sequence numbers for you automatically. For MyISAM tables, you can set the first sequence number by executing SET INSERT_ID=value before ALTER TABLE or by using the AUTO_INCREMENT=value table option. See Section 13.5.3, “SET Syntax”.

With MyISAM tables, if you do not change the AUTO_INCREMENT column, the sequence number is not affected. If you drop an AUTO_INCREMENT column and then add another AUTO_INCREMENT column, the numbers are resequenced beginning with 1.

When replication is used, adding an AUTO_INCREMENT column to a table might not produce the same ordering of the rows on the slave and the master. This occurs because the order in which the rows are numbered depends on the specific storage engine used for the table and the order in which the rows were inserted. If it is important to have the same order on the master and slave, the rows must be ordered before assigning an AUTO_INCREMENT number. Assuming that you want to add an AUTO_INCREMENT column to the table t1, the following statements produce a new table t2 identical to t1 but with an AUTO_INCREMENT column:

CREATE TABLE t2 (id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY) 
SELECT * FROM t1 ORDER BY col1, col2;

This assumes that the table t1 has columns col1 and col2.

This set of statements will also produce a new table t2 identical to t1, with the addition of an AUTO_INCREMENT column:

CREATE TABLE t2 LIKE t1;
ALTER TABLE T2 ADD id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY;
INSERT INTO t2 SELECT * FROM t1 ORDER BY col1, col2;

Important: To guarantee the same ordering on both master and slave, all columns of t1 must be referenced in the ORDER BY clause.

Regardless of the method used to create and populate the copy having the AUTO_INCREMENT column, the final step is to drop the original table and then rename the copy:

DROP t1;
ALTER TABLE t2 RENAME t1;

See also Section B.1.7.1, “Problems with ALTER TABLE.

13.1.3. ALTER LOGFILE GROUP Syntax

ALTER LOGFILE GROUP logfile_group
    ADD UNDOFILE 'file'
    [INITIAL_SIZE [=] size]
    ENGINE [=] engine

This statement adds an UNDO file named 'file' to an existing log file group logfile_group. An ALTER LOGFILE GROUP statement has one and only one ADD UNDOFILE clause. No DROP UNDOFILE clause is supported.

The optional INITIAL_SIZE parameter sets the UNDO file's initial size in bytes; if not specified, the initial size default to 128M (128 megabytes). You may optionally follow size with a one-letter abbreviation for an order of magnitude, similar to those used in my.cnf. Generally, this is one of the letters M (for megabytes) or G (for gigabytes).

The ENGINE parameter (required) determines the storage engine which is used by this log file group, with engine being the name of the storage engine. In MySQL 5.1, the only accepted values for engine are NDB and NDBCLUSTER.

Here is an example, which assumes that the log file group lg_3 has already been created using CREATE LOGFILE GROUP (see Section 13.1.9, “CREATE LOGFILE GROUP Syntax”):

ALTER LOGFILE GROUP lg_3
    ADD UNDOFILE 'undo_10.dat'
    INITIAL_SIZE=32M
    ENGINE=NDB;

When ALTER LOGFILE GROUP is used with ENGINE = NDB, an UNDO log file is created on each Cluster data node. You can verify that the UNDO files were created and obtain information about them by querying the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.FILES table. For example:

mysql> SELECT FILE_NAME, LOGFILE_GROUP_NUMBER, EXTRA 
    -> FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.FILES 
    -> WHERE LOGFILE_GROUP_NAME = 'lg_3';
+-------------+----------------------+----------------+
| FILE_NAME   | LOGFILE_GROUP_NUMBER | EXTRA          |
+-------------+----------------------+----------------+
| newdata.dat |                    0 | CLUSTER_NODE=3 |
| newdata.dat |                    0 | CLUSTER_NODE=4 |
| undo_10.dat |                   11 | CLUSTER_NODE=3 |
| undo_10.dat |                   11 | CLUSTER_NODE=4 |
+-------------+----------------------+----------------+
4 rows in set (0.01 sec)

(See Section 22.21, “The INFORMATION_SCHEMA FILES Table”.)

ALTER LOGFILE GROUP was added in MySQL 5.1.6. In MySQL 5.1, it is useful only with Disk Data storage for MySQL Cluster. See Section 15.12, “MySQL Cluster Disk Data Tables”.

13.1.4. ALTER TABLESPACE Syntax

ALTER TABLESPACE tablespace
    ADD DATAFILE 'file'
    [INITIAL_SIZE [=] size]
    ENGINE [=] engine

ALTER TABLESPACE tablespace
    DROP DATAFILE 'file'
    ENGINE [=] engine

This statement can be used either to add a new data file, or to drop a data file from a tablespace.

The ADD DATAFILE variant allows you to specify an initial size using an INITIAL_SIZE clause, where size is measured in bytes; the default value is 128M (128 megabytes). You may optionally follow this integer value with a one-letter abbreviation for an order of magnitude, similar to those used in my.cnf. Generally, this is one of the letters M (for megabytes) or G (for gigabytes).

Once a data file has been created, its size cannot be changed; however, you can add more data files to the tablespace using additional ALTER TABLESPACE ... ADD DATAFILE statements.

Using DROP DATAFILE with ALTER TABLESPACE drops the data file 'file' from the tablespace. This file must already have been added to the tablespace using CREATE TABLESPACE or ALTER TABLESPACE; otherwise an error will result.

Both ALTER TABLESPACE ... ADD DATAFILE and ALTER TABLESPACE ... DROP DATAFILE require an ENGINE clause which specifies the storage engine used by the tablespace. In MySQL 5.1, the only accepted values for engine are NDB and NDBCLUSTER.

When ALTER TABLESPACE ... ADD DATAFILE is used with ENGINE = NDB, a data file is created on each Cluster data node. You can verify that the data files were created and obtain information about them by querying the INFORMATION_SCHEMA.FILES table. For example, the following query shows all data files belonging to the tablespace named newts:

mysql> SELECT LOGFILE_GROUP_NAME, FILE_NAME, EXTRA 
    -> FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.FILES
    -> WHERE TABLESPACE_NAME = 'newts' AND FILE_TYPE = 'DATAFILE';
+--------------------+--------------+----------------+
| LOGFILE_GROUP_NAME | FILE_NAME    | EXTRA          |
+--------------------+--------------+----------------+
| lg_3               | newdata.dat  | CLUSTER_NODE=3 |
| lg_3               | newdata.dat  | CLUSTER_NODE=4 |
| lg_3               | newdata2.dat | CLUSTER_NODE=3 |
| lg_3               | newdata2.dat | CLUSTER_NODE=4 |
+--------------------+--------------+----------------+
2 rows in set (0.03 sec)

See Section 22.21, “The INFORMATION_SCHEMA FILES Table”.

ALTER TABLESPACE was added in MySQL 5.1.6. In MySQL 5.1, it is useful only with Disk Data storage for MySQL Cluster. See Section 15.12, “MySQL Cluster Disk Data Tables”.

13.1.5. ALTER SERVER Syntax

ALTER SERVER  server_name
OPTIONS (option ...)

Alters the server information for server_name, adjusting the specified options as per the CREATE SERVER command. See Section 13.1.11, “CREATE SERVER Syntax”. The corresponding fields in the mysql.servers table are updated accordingly. This statement requires the SUPER privilege.

For example, to update the USER option:

ALTER SERVER s OPTIONS (USER 'sally');

ALTER SERVER does not cause an automatic commit.

13.1.6. CREATE DATABASE Syntax

CREATE {DATABASE | SCHEMA} [IF NOT EXISTS] db_name
    [create_specification [create_specification] ...]

create_specification:
    [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name
  | [DEFAULT] COLLATE collation_name

CREATE DATABASE creates a database with the given name. To use this statement, you need the CREATE privilege for the database. CREATE SCHEMA is a synonym for CREATE DATABASE.

An error occurs if the database exists and you did not specify IF NOT EXISTS.

create_specification options specify database characteristics. Database characteristics are stored in the db.opt file in the database directory. The CHARACTER SET clause specifies the default database character set. The COLLATE clause specifies the default database collation. Chapter 10, Character Set Support, discusses character set and collation names.

A database in MySQL is implemented as a directory containing files that correspond to tables in the database. Because there are no tables in a database when it is initially created, the CREATE DATABASE statement creates only a directory under the MySQL data directory and the db.opt file. Rules for allowable database names are given in Section 9.2, “Identifiers”. If a database name contains special characters, the name for the database directory contains encoded versions of those characters as described in Section 9.2.3, “Mapping of Identifiers to Filenames”.

If you manually create a directory under the data directory (for example, with mkdir), the server considers it a database directory and it shows up in the output of SHOW DATABASES.

You can also use the mysqladmin program to create databases. See Section 8.10, “mysqladmin — Client for Administering a MySQL Server”.

13.1.7. CREATE INDEX Syntax

CREATE [UNIQUE|FULLTEXT|SPATIAL] INDEX index_name
    [index_type]
    ON tbl_name (index_col_name,...)
    [index_option ...]

index_col_name:
    col_name [(length)] [ASC | DESC]

index_type:
    USING {BTREE | HASH}

index_option:
    KEY_BLOCK_SIZE value
  | index_type
  | WITH PARSER parser_name

CREATE INDEX is mapped to an ALTER TABLE statement to create indexes. See Section 13.1.2, “ALTER TABLE Syntax”. CREATE INDEX cannot be used to create a PRIMARY KEY; use ALTER TABLE instead. For more information about indexes, see Section 7.4.5, “How MySQL Uses Indexes”.

Normally, you create all indexes on a table at the time the table itself is created with CREATE TABLE. See Section 13.1.8, “CREATE TABLE Syntax”. CREATE INDEX enables you to add indexes to existing tables.

A column list of the form (col1,col2,...) creates a multiple-column index. Index values are formed by concatenating the values of the given columns.

Indexes can be created that use only the leading part of column values, using col_name(length) syntax to specify an index prefix length:

  • Prefixes can be specified for CHAR, VARCHAR, BINARY, and VARBINARY columns.

  • BLOB and TEXT columns also can be indexed, but a prefix length must be given.

  • Prefix lengths are given in characters for non-binary string types and in bytes for binary string types. That is, index entries consist of the first length characters of each column value for CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns, and the first length bytes of each column value for BINARY, VARBINARY, and BLOB columns.

  • For spatial columns, prefix values can be given as described later in this section.

The statement shown here creates an index using the first 10 characters of the name column:

CREATE INDEX part_of_name ON customer (name(10));

If names in the column usually differ in the first 10 characters, this index should not be much slower than an index created from the entire name column. Also, using column prefixes for indexes can make the index file much smaller, which could save a lot of disk space and might also speed up INSERT operations.

Prefix lengths are storage engine-dependent (for example, a prefix can be up to 1000 bytes long for MyISAM tables, 767 bytes for InnoDB tables). Note that prefix limits are measured in bytes, whereas the prefix length in CREATE INDEX statements is interpreted as number of characters for non-binary data types (CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT). Take this into account when specifying a prefix length for a column that uses a multi-byte character set. For example, utf8 columns require up to three index bytes per character.

A UNIQUE index creates a constraint such that all values in the index must be distinct. An error occurs if you try to add a new row with a key value that matches an existing row. For all engines, a UNIQUE index allows multiple NULL values for columns that can contain NULL. If you specify a prefix value for a column in a UNIQUE index, the column values must be unique within the prefix.

FULLTEXT indexes are supported only for MyISAM tables and can include only CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns. Indexing always happens over the entire column; column prefix indexing is not supported and any prefix length is ignored if specified. See Section 12.8, “Full-Text Search Functions”, for details of operation.

The MyISAM, InnoDB, NDB, BDB, and ARCHIVE storage engines support spatial columns such as (POINT and GEOMETRY. (Chapter 17, Spatial Extensions, describes the spatial data types.) However, support for spatial column indexing varies among engines. Spatial and non-spatial indexes are available according to the following rules.

Spatial indexes (created using SPATIAL INDEX):

  • Available only for MyISAM tables. Specifying a SPATIAL INDEX for other storage engines results in an error.

  • Indexed columns must be NOT NULL.

  • In MySQL 5.1, column prefix lengths are prohibited. The full width of each column is indexed.

Non-spatial indexes (created with INDEX, UNIQUE, or PRIMARY KEY):

  • Allowed for any storage engine that supports spatial columns except ARCHIVE.

  • Columns can be NULL unless the index is a primary key.

  • For each spatial column in a non-SPATIAL index except POINT columns, a column prefix length must be specified. (This is the same requirement as for indexed BLOB columns.) The prefix length is given in bytes.

  • The index type for a non-SPATIAL index depends on the storage engine. Currently, B-tree is used.

In MySQL 5.1:

  • You can add an index on a column that can have NULL values only if you are using the MyISAM, InnoDB, or MEMORY storage engine.

  • You can add an index on a BLOB or TEXT column only if you are using the MyISAM, or InnoDB storage engine.

An index_col_name specification can end with ASC or DESC. These keywords are allowed for future extensions for specifying ascending or descending index value storage. Currently, they are parsed but ignored; index values are always stored in ascending order.

Following the index column list, index options can be given. An index_option value can be any of the following:

  • KEY_BLOCK_SIZE value

    This option provides a hint to the storage engine about the size to use for index key blocks. The engine is allowed to change the value if necessary. A value of 0 indicates that the default value should be used. KEY_BLOCK_SIZE was added in MySQL 5.1.10.

  • index_type

    Some storage engines allow you to specify an index type when creating an index. The allowable index type values supported by different storage engines are shown in the following table. Where multiple index types are listed, the first one is the default when no index type specifier is given.

    Storage EngineAllowable Index Types
    MyISAMBTREE
    InnoDBBTREE
    MEMORY/HEAPHASH, BTREE
    NDBHASH

    If you specify an index type that is not legal for a given storage engine, but there is another index type available that the engine can use without affecting query results, the engine uses the available type.

    Examples:

    CREATE TABLE lookup (id INT) ENGINE = MEMORY;
    CREATE INDEX id_index USING BTREE ON lookup (id);
    

    For indexes on NDB table columns, the USING clause can be specified only for a unique index or primary key. In such cases, the USING HASH clause prevents the creation of an implicit ordered index. Without USING HASH, a statement defining a unique index or primary key automatically results in the creation of a HASH index in addition to the ordered index, both of which index the same set of columns.

    TYPE type_name is recognized as a synonym for USING type_name. However, USING is the preferred form.

    Note: Before MySQL 5.1.10, this option can be given only before the ON tbl_name clause. Use of the option in this position is deprecated as of 5.1.10; support for it is to be dropped in a future MySQL release.

  • WITH PARSER parser_name

    This option can be used only with FULLTEXT indexes. It associates a parser plugin with the index if full-text indexing and searching operations need special handling. See Section 26.2, “The MySQL Plugin Interface”, for details on creating plugins.

13.1.8. CREATE TABLE Syntax

CREATE [TEMPORARY] TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tbl_name
    (create_definition,...)
    [table_option ...]
    [partition_options]

Or:

CREATE [TEMPORARY] TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tbl_name
    [(create_definition,...)]
    [table_option ...]
    [partition_options]
    select_statement

Or:

CREATE [TEMPORARY] TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tbl_name
    { LIKE old_tbl_name | (LIKE old_tbl_name) }

create_definition:
    column_definition
  | [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] PRIMARY KEY [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
      [index_option ...]
  | {INDEX|KEY} [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
      [index_option ...]
  | [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] UNIQUE [INDEX|KEY]
      [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...)
      [index_option ...]
  | {FULLTEXT|SPATIAL} [INDEX|KEY] [index_name] (index_col_name,...)
      [index_option ...]
  | [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] FOREIGN KEY
      [index_name] (index_col_name,...) [reference_definition]
  | CHECK (expr)

column_definition:
    col_name data_type [NOT NULL | NULL] [DEFAULT default_value]
      [AUTO_INCREMENT] [UNIQUE [KEY] | [PRIMARY] KEY]
      [COMMENT 'string'] [reference_definition]

data_type:
    BIT[(length)]
  | TINYINT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | SMALLINT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | MEDIUMINT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | INT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | INTEGER[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | BIGINT[(length)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | REAL[(length,decimals)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | DOUBLE[(length,decimals)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | FLOAT[(length,decimals)] [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | DECIMAL(length,decimals) [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | NUMERIC(length,decimals) [UNSIGNED] [ZEROFILL]
  | DATE
  | TIME
  | TIMESTAMP
  | DATETIME
  | YEAR
  | CHAR(length)
      [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
  | VARCHAR(length)
      [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
  | BINARY(length)
  | VARBINARY(length)
  | TINYBLOB
  | BLOB
  | MEDIUMBLOB
  | LONGBLOB
  | TINYTEXT [BINARY]
      [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
  | TEXT [BINARY]
      [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
  | MEDIUMTEXT [BINARY]
      [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
  | LONGTEXT [BINARY]
      [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
  | ENUM(value1,value2,value3,...)
      [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
  | SET(value1,value2,value3,...)
      [CHARACTER SET charset_name] [COLLATE collation_name]
  | spatial_type

index_col_name:
    col_name [(length)] [ASC | DESC]

index_type:
    USING {BTREE | HASH}

index_option:
    KEY_BLOCK_SIZE value
  | index_type
  | WITH PARSER parser_name

reference_definition:
    REFERENCES tbl_name [(index_col_name,...)]
      [MATCH FULL | MATCH PARTIAL | MATCH SIMPLE]
      [ON DELETE reference_option]
      [ON UPDATE reference_option]

reference_option:
    RESTRICT | CASCADE | SET NULL | NO ACTION

table_option:
    [TABLESPACE tablespace_name STORAGE DISK]
    ENGINE [=] engine_name
  | AUTO_INCREMENT [=] value
  | AVG_ROW_LENGTH [=] value
  | [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET charset_name
  | CHECKSUM [=] {0 | 1}
  | COLLATE collation_name
  | COMMENT [=] 'string'
  | CONNECTION [=] 'connect_string'
  | DATA DIRECTORY [=] 'absolute path to directory'
  | DELAY_KEY_WRITE [=] {0 | 1}
  | INDEX DIRECTORY [=] 'absolute path to directory'
  | INSERT_METHOD [=] { NO | FIRST | LAST }
  | KEY_BLOCK_SIZE [=] value
  | MAX_ROWS [=] value
  | MIN_ROWS [=] value
  | PACK_KEYS [=] {0 | 1 | DEFAULT}
  | PASSWORD [=] 'string'
  | ROW_FORMAT [=] {DEFAULT|DYNAMIC|FIXED|COMPRESSED|REDUNDANT|COMPACT}
  | UNION [=] (tbl_name[,tbl_name]...)

partition_options:
    PARTITION BY
          [LINEAR] HASH(expr)
        | [LINEAR] KEY(column_list)
        | RANGE(expr)
        | LIST(expr)
    [PARTITIONS num]
    [SUBPARTITION BY
          [LINEAR] HASH(expr)
        | [LINEAR] KEY(column_list)
      [SUBPARTITIONS num]
    ]
    [(partition_definition [, partition_definition] ...)]

partition_definition:
    PARTITION partition_name
        [VALUES {LESS THAN (expr) | MAXVALUE | IN (value_list)}]
        [[STORAGE] ENGINE [=] engine_name]
        [COMMENT [=] 'comment_text' ]
        [DATA DIRECTORY [=] 'data_dir']
        [INDEX DIRECTORY [=] 'index_dir']
        [MAX_ROWS [=] max_number_of_rows]
        [MIN_ROWS [=] min_number_of_rows]
        [TABLESPACE [=] (tablespace_name)]
        [NODEGROUP [=] node_group_id]
        [(subpartition_definition [, subpartition_definition] ...)]

subpartition_definition:
    SUBPARTITION logical_name
        [[STORAGE] ENGINE [=] engine_name]
        [COMMENT [=] 'comment_text' ]
        [DATA DIRECTORY [=] 'data_dir']
        [INDEX DIRECTORY [=] 'index_dir']
        [MAX_ROWS [=] max_number_of_rows]
        [MIN_ROWS [=] min_number_of_rows]
        [TABLESPACE [=] (tablespace_name)]
        [NODEGROUP [=] node_group_id]

select_statement:
    [IGNORE | REPLACE] [AS] SELECT ...   (Some legal select statement)

CREATE TABLE creates a table with the given name. You must have the CREATE privilege for the table.

Rules for allowable table names are given in Section 9.2, “Identifiers”. By default, the table is created in the default database. An error occurs if the table exists, if there is no default database, or if the database does not exist.

The table name can be specified as db_name.tbl_name to create the table in a specific database. This works regardless of whether there is a default database, assuming that the database exists. If you use quoted identifiers, quote the database and table names separately. For example, write `mydb`.`mytbl`, not `mydb.mytbl`.

You can use the TEMPORARY keyword when creating a table. A TEMPORARY table is visible only to the current connection, and is dropped automatically when the connection is closed. This means that two different connections can use the same temporary table name without conflicting with each other or with an existing non-TEMPORARY table of the same name. (The existing table is hidden until the temporary table is dropped.) To create temporary tables, you must have the CREATE TEMPORARY TABLES privilege.

Note: CREATE TABLE does not automatically commit the current active transaction if you use the TEMPORARY keyword.

The keywords IF NOT EXISTS prevent an error from occurring if the table exists. However, there is no verification that the existing table has a structure identical to that indicated by the CREATE TABLE statement. Note: If you use IF NOT EXISTS in a CREATE TABLE ... SELECT statement, any rows selected by the SELECT part are inserted regardless of whether the table already exists.

MySQL represents each table by an .frm table format (definition) file in the database directory. The storage engine for the table might create other files as well. In the case of MyISAM tables, the storage engine creates data and index files. Thus, for each MyISAM table tbl_name, there are three disk files:

FilePurpose
tbl_name.frmTable format (definition) file
tbl_name.MYDData file
tbl_name.MYIIndex file

Chapter 14, Storage Engines and Table Types, describes what files each storage engine creates to represent tables. If a table name contains special characters, the names for the table files contain encoded versions of those characters as described in Section 9.2.3, “Mapping of Identifiers to Filenames”.

data_type represents the data type is a column definition. spatial_type represents a spatial data type. The data type syntax shown is representative only. For a full description of the syntax available for specfiying column data types, as well as information about the properties of each type, see Chapter 11, Data Types, and Chapter 17, Spatial Extensions.

Some attributes do not apply to all data types. AUTO_INCREMENT applies only to integer types. DEFAULT does not apply to the BLOB or TEXT types.

  • If neither NULL nor NOT NULL is specified, the column is treated as though NULL had been specified.

  • An integer column can have the additional attribute AUTO_INCREMENT. When you insert a value of NULL (recommended) or 0 into an indexed AUTO_INCREMENT column, the column is set to the next sequence value. Typically this is value+1, where value is the largest value for the column currently in the table. AUTO_INCREMENT sequences begin with 1.

    To retrieve an AUTO_INCREMENT value after inserting a row, use the LAST_INSERT_ID() SQL function or the mysql_insert_id() C API function. See Section 12.11.3, “Information Functions”, and Section 24.2.3.37, “mysql_insert_id().

    If the NO_AUTO_VALUE_ON_ZERO SQL mode is enabled, you can store 0 in AUTO_INCREMENT columns as 0 without generating a new sequence value. See Section 5.2.6, “SQL Modes”.

    Note: There can be only one AUTO_INCREMENT column per table, it must be indexed, and it cannot have a DEFAULT value. An AUTO_INCREMENT column works properly only if it contains only positive values. Inserting a negative number is regarded as inserting a very large positive number. This is done to avoid precision problems when numbers “wrap” over from positive to negative and also to ensure that you do not accidentally get an AUTO_INCREMENT column that contains 0.

    For MyISAM tables, you can specify an AUTO_INCREMENT secondary column in a multiple-column key. See Section 3.6.9, “Using AUTO_INCREMENT.

    To make MySQL compatible with some ODBC applications, you can find the AUTO_INCREMENT value for the last inserted row with the following query:

    SELECT * FROM tbl_name WHERE auto_col IS NULL
    

    For information about InnoDB and AUTO_INCREMENT, see Section 14.5.6.3, “How AUTO_INCREMENT Columns Work in InnoDB.

  • Character data types (CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT) can include CHARACTER SET and COLLATE attributes to specify the character set and collation for the column. For details, see Chapter 10, Character Set Support. CHARSET is a synonym for CHARACTER SET. Example:

    CREATE TABLE t (c CHAR(20) CHARACTER SET utf8 COLLATE utf8_bin);
    

    MySQL 5.1 interprets length specifications in character column definitions in characters. (Versions before MySQL 4.1 interpreted them in bytes.) Lengths for BINARY and VARBINARY are in bytes.

  • The DEFAULT clause specifies a default value for a column. With one exception, the default value must be a constant; it cannot be a function or an expression. This means, for example, that you cannot set the default for a date column to be the value of a function such as NOW() or CURRENT_DATE. The exception is that you can specify CURRENT_TIMESTAMP as the default for a TIMESTAMP column. See Section 11.3.1.1, “TIMESTAMP Properties as of MySQL 4.1”.

    If a column definition includes no explicit DEFAULT value, MySQL determines the default value as described in Section 11.1.4, “Data Type Default Values”.

    BLOB and TEXT columns cannot be assigned a default value.

  • A comment for a column can be specified with the COMMENT option, up to 255 characters long. The comment is displayed by the SHOW CREATE TABLE and SHOW FULL COLUMNS statements.

  • KEY is normally a synonym for INDEX. The key attribute PRIMARY KEY can also be specified as just KEY when given in a column definition. This was implemented for compatibility with other database systems.

  • A UNIQUE index creates a constraint such that all values in the index must be distinct. An error occurs if you try to add a new row with a key value that matches an existing row. For all engines, a UNIQUE index allows multiple NULL values for columns that can contain NULL.

  • A PRIMARY KEY is a unique index where all key columns must be defined as NOT NULL. If they are not explicitly declared as NOT NULL, MySQL declares them so implicitly (and silently). A table can have only one PRIMARY KEY. If you do not have a PRIMARY KEY and an application asks for the PRIMARY KEY in your tables, MySQL returns the first UNIQUE index that has no NULL columns as the PRIMARY KEY.

    In InnoDB tables, having a long PRIMARY KEY wastes a lot of space. (See Section 14.5.13, “InnoDB Table and Index Structures”.)

  • In the created table, a PRIMARY KEY is placed first, followed by all UNIQUE indexes, and then the non-unique indexes. This helps the MySQL optimizer to prioritize which index to use and also more quickly to detect duplicated UNIQUE keys.

  • A PRIMARY KEY can be a multiple-column index. However, you cannot create a multiple-column index using the PRIMARY KEY key attribute in a column specification. Doing so only marks that single column as primary. You must use a separate PRIMARY KEY(index_col_name, ...) clause.

  • If a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE index consists of only one column that has an integer type, you can also refer to the column as _rowid in SELECT statements.

  • In MySQL, the name of a PRIMARY KEY is PRIMARY. For other indexes, if you do not assign a name, the index is assigned the same name as the first indexed column, with an optional suffix (_2, _3, ...) to make it unique. You can see index names for a table using SHOW INDEX FROM tbl_name. See Section 13.5.4.17, “SHOW INDEX Syntax”.

  • Some storage engines allow you to specify an index type when creating an index. The syntax for the index_type specifier is USING type_name.

    Example:

    CREATE TABLE lookup
      (id INT, INDEX USING BTREE (id))
      ENGINE = MEMORY;
    

    Before MySQL 5.1.10, USING can be given only before the index column list. As of 5.1.10, the preferred position is after the column list. Use of the option before the column list will no longer be recognized as of MySQL 5.3.

    index_option values specify additional options for an index. USING is one such option. For details about allowable index_option values, see Section 13.1.7, “CREATE INDEX Syntax”.

    For more information about indexes, see Section 7.4.5, “How MySQL Uses Indexes”.

  • In MySQL 5.1, only the MyISAM, InnoDB, and MEMORY storage engines support indexes on columns that can have NULL values. In other cases, you must declare indexed columns as NOT NULL or an error results.

  • For CHAR, VARCHAR, BINARY, and VARBINARY columns, indexes can be created that use only the leading part of column values, using col_name(length) syntax to specify an index prefix length. BLOB and TEXT columns also can be indexed, but a prefix length must be given. Prefix lengths are given in characters for non-binary string types and in bytes for binary string types. That is, index entries consist of the first length characters of each column value for CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns, and the first length bytes of each column value for BINARY, VARBINARY, and BLOB columns. Indexing only a prefix of column values like this can make the index file much smaller. See Section 7.4.3, “Column Indexes”.

    Only the MyISAM and InnoDB storage engines support indexing on BLOB and TEXT columns. For example:

    CREATE TABLE test (blob_col BLOB, INDEX(blob_col(10)));
    

    Prefixes can be up to 1000 bytes long (767 bytes for InnoDB tables). Note that prefix limits are measured in bytes, whereas the prefix length in CREATE TABLE statements is interpreted as number of characters for non-binary data types (CHAR, VARCHAR, TEXT). Take this into account when specifying a prefix length for a column that uses a multi-byte character set.

  • An index_col_name specification can end with ASC or DESC. These keywords are allowed for future extensions for specifying ascending or descending index value storage. Currently, they are parsed but ignored; index values are always stored in ascending order.

  • When you use ORDER BY or GROUP BY on a TEXT or BLOB column in a SELECT, the server sorts values using only the initial number of bytes indicated by the max_sort_length system variable. See Section 11.4.3, “The BLOB and TEXT Types”.

  • You can create special FULLTEXT indexes, which are used for full-text searches. Only the MyISAM storage engine supports FULLTEXT indexes. They can be created only from CHAR, VARCHAR, and TEXT columns. Indexing always happens over the entire column; column prefix indexing is not supported and any prefix length is ignored if specified. See Section 12.8, “Full-Text Search Functions”, for details of operation. A WITH PARSER clause can be specified as an index_option value to associate a parser plugin with the index if full-text indexing and searching operations need special handling. This clause is legal only for FULLTEXT indexes. See Section 26.2, “The MySQL Plugin Interface”, for details on creating plugins.

  • You can create SPATIAL indexes on spatial data types. Spatial types are supported only for MyISAM tables and indexed columns must be declared as NOT NULL. See Chapter 17, Spatial Extensions.

  • InnoDB tables support checking of foreign key constraints. See Section 14.5, “The InnoDB Storage Engine”. Note that the FOREIGN KEY syntax in InnoDB is more restrictive than the syntax presented for the CREATE TABLE statement at the beginning of this section: The columns of the referenced table must always be explicitly named. InnoDB supports both ON DELETE and ON UPDATE actions on foreign keys. For the precise syntax, see Section 14.5.6.4, “FOREIGN KEY Constraints”.

    For other storage engines, MySQL Server parses and ignores the FOREIGN KEY and REFERENCES syntax in CREATE TABLE statements. The CHECK clause is parsed but ignored by all storage engines. See