#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server

Question

I was trying to run following Query on my sql server :

CREATE TABLE `e_store`.`products`(
    `id` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
    `name` VARCHAR(250) NOT NULL ,
    `brand_id` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL ,
    `category_id` INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL ,
    `attributes` JSON NOT NULL ,
    PRIMARY KEY(`id`) ,
    INDEX `CATEGORY_ID`(`category_id` ASC) ,
    INDEX `BRAND_ID`(`brand_id` ASC) ,
    CONSTRAINT `brand_id` FOREIGN KEY(`brand_id`) REFERENCES `e_store`.`brands`(`id`) ON DELETE RESTRICT ON UPDATE CASCADE ,
    CONSTRAINT `category_id` FOREIGN KEY(`category_id`) REFERENCES `e_store`.`categories`(`id`) ON DELETE RESTRICT ON UPDATE CASCADE
);

I have already brands and categories tables on my e_store database.

But I got the following Error :

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MariaDB server version for the right syntax to use near 'JSON NOT NULL ,
    PRIMARY KEY(`id`) ,
    INDEX `CATEGORY_ID`('category_id' ' at line 6

Answer 1

For those who are facing this issue similar to me:

MariaDB does not natively implement the JSON data type but it uses it as an alias for LONGTEXT for compatibility reasons. According to the documentation (https://mariadb.com/kb/en/library/json-data-type/):

JSON is an alias for LONGTEXT introduced for compatibility reasons with MySQL's JSON data type. MariaDB implements this as a LONGTEXT rather, as the JSON data type contradicts the SQL standard, and MariaDB's benchmarks indicate that performance is at least equivalent.

In order to ensure that a a valid json document is inserted, the JSON_VALID function can be used as a CHECK constraint.

So if you are having issues with the JSON data type in MariaDB, simply just change to LONGTEXT. ;-)