I would like to drop the foreign key in my table but been into this error message
mysql> alter table customers drop foreign key customerid;
ERROR 1025 (HY000): Error on rename of '.\products\customers' to '.\products\#sql2-7ec-a3' (errno: 152)
mysql>
The solution described here by Chris White worked for me.
The root problem is that MySQL creates both an index and a foreign key. Both must be removed (the foreign key first contrary to what Chris said).
show create table table_name;
SHOW CREATE TABLE `table_name`:
| table_name | CREATE TABLE `table_name` (
`id` int(20) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,
`key_column` smallint(5) unsigned default '1',
KEY `column_tablein_26440ee6` (`key_column`), <--- shows key name
CONSTRAINT `table_name_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`key_column`) REFERENCES <--- shows foreign key constraint name
`second_table` (`id`) ON DELETE SET NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 |
Delete the foreign key constraint:
ALTER TABLE table_name DROP FOREIGN KEY `table_name_ibfk_1`;
Delete the key
ALTER TABLE table_name DROP KEY `column_tablein_26440ee6`;
That did it for me.