Foreign key not working in MySQL: Why can I INSERT a value that's not in the foreign column?

Question

I've created a table in MySQL:

CREATE TABLE actions ( A_id int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
type ENUM('rate','report','submit','edit','delete') NOT NULL,
Q_id int NOT NULL,
U_id int NOT NULL,
date DATE NOT NULL,
time TIME NOT NULL,
rate tinyint(1),
PRIMARY KEY (A_id),
CONSTRAINT fk_Question FOREIGN KEY (Q_id) REFERENCES questions(P_id),
CONSTRAINT fk_User FOREIGN KEY (U_id) REFERENCES users(P_id));

This created the table I wanted just fine (although a "DESCRIBE actions;" command showed me that the foreign keys were keys of type MUL, and I'm not sure what this means). However, when I try to enter a Q_id or a U_id that does not exist in the questions or users tables, MySQL still allows these values.

What did I do wrong? How can I prevent a table with a foreign key from accepting invalid data?

UPDATE 1

If I add TYPE=InnoDB to the end, I get an error:

ERROR 1005 (HY000): Can't create table './quotes/actions.frm' (errno: 150)

Why might that happen?

UPDATE 2

I'm told that it's important to enforce data integrity with functional foreign keys, but also that InnoDB should not be used with MySQL. What do you recommend?

Answer 1

I would guess that your default storage engine is MyISAM, which ignores foreign key constraints. It silently accepts the declaration of a foreign key, but does not store the constraint or enforce it subsequently.

However, it does implicitly create an index on the columns you declared for the foreign key. In MySQL, "KEY" is a synonym for "INDEX". That's what's being shown in the DESCRIBE output: an index, but not a constraint.

You are able to insert invalid values to the table right now because there is no constraint. To get a constraint that enforces referential integrity, you must use the InnoDB storage engine:

CREATE TABLE actions (
  A_id int NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  ...
  CONSTRAINT fk_Question FOREIGN KEY (Q_id) REFERENCES questions(P_id),
  CONSTRAINT fk_User FOREIGN KEY (U_id) REFERENCES users(P_id)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;

I've always thought it was a big mistake on MySQL's part to silently ignore foreign key constraint declarations. There's no error or warning that the storage engine doesn't support them.

The same is true for CHECK constraints. By the way no storage engine used with MySQL supports CHECK constraints but the SQL parser accepts them with no complaint.

---

The errno 150 issue occurs when it cannot create the InnoDB table, because it couldn't make sense of the foreign key constraint. You can get some more information with:

SHOW ENGINE INNODB STATUS;

Some requirements for InnoDB foreign keys:

• Referenced table must also be InnoDB.
• Referenced table must have an index and a primary key.
• SQL data types of FK column and referenced PK column must be identical. For example, INT does not match BIGINT or INT UNSIGNED.

---

You can change the storage engine of a table that has data in it:

ALTER TABLE actions ENGINE=InnoDB;

This effectively copies the entire MyISAM table to an InnoDB table, then once that succeeds it drops the MyISAM table and renames the new InnoDB table to the name of the former MyISAM table. This is called a "table restructure" and it can be time-consuming, depending on how much data is in the table. A table restructure occurs during ALTER TABLE, even in some cases where it may seem unnecessary.

---

Re your update 2:

I'm told that it's important to enforce data integrity with functional foreign keys, but also that InnoDB should not be used with MySQL. What do you recommend?

Who told you that? It's absolutely false. InnoDB has better performance than MyISAM (though InnoDB needs more attention to tuning the configuration), InnoDB supports atomic changes, transactions, foreign keys, and InnoDB is much more resistant to corrupting data in a crash.

Unless you're running an old, unsupported version of MySQL (5.0 or earlier) you should use InnoDB as your default storage engine choice, and use MyISAM only if you can demonstrate a specific workload that benefits from MyISAM.