How can I add a foreign key when creating a new table?

mysql create-table

user17451 · Oct 27, 2008 · Viewed 32.5k times · Source

I have these two CREATE TABLE statements:

CREATE TABLE GUEST (
  id int(15) not null auto_increment PRIMARY KEY,
  GuestName char(25) not null
);

CREATE TABLE PAYMENT (
  id int(15) not null auto_increment
  Foreign Key(id) references GUEST(id),
  BillNr int(15) not null
);

What is the problem in the second statement? It did not create a new table.

Answer

The answer to your question is almost the same as the answer to this one .

You need to specify in the table containing the foreign key the name of the table containing the primary key, and the name of the primary key field (using "references").

This has some code showing how to create foreign keys by themselves, and in CREATE TABLE.

Here's one of the simpler examples from that:

CREATE TABLE parent (id INT NOT NULL,
   PRIMARY KEY (id)
) ENGINE=INNODB;
CREATE TABLE child (id INT, parent_id INT,
   INDEX par_ind (parent_id),
   FOREIGN KEY (parent_id) REFERENCES parent(id)
   ON DELETE CASCADE
) ENGINE=INNODB;

How can I add a foreign key when creating a new table?

Answer

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