Opened 12 years ago

Closed 12 years ago

#17267 closed Cleanup/optimization (fixed)

MySQL Storage Engines: MyISAM doesn't support Foreign Keys

Reported by: anonymous Owned by: nobody
Component: Documentation Version: 1.2
Severity: Normal Keywords: database, mysql, 'storage engine', myisam, 'foreign key'
Cc: Triage Stage: Accepted
Has patch: no Needs documentation: no
Needs tests: no Patch needs improvement: no
Easy pickings: yes UI/UX: no

Description (last modified by Aymeric Augustin)

I was really wondering what this is supposed to mean. How can a Relational Database not support foreign keys?
So I had to go to to freenode#mysql to ask.

<Vacuity> or to be more precise, myisam doesn't support Foreign Key _Constraints_
<jay567> so I only have to check myself that the target of the FK is existant in the target table?
<Vacuity> jay567: it means, although you can define a myisam table with a CONSTRAINT FOREIGN KEY (col1) REFERENCES othertable (foocol) ON DELETE CASCADE ... , myisam will ignore this and will not enforce FK constraint
<Vacuity> jay567: yes, you will have to check that yourself
<Vacuity> jay567: if you don't have a very good reason to use myisam, you should use innodb anyways :)

so

  1. This shouldn't be an issue with Django, because it does not rely on the database for the above check, right?
  2. Could you please try to be more clear, so people like me don't need to wonder (see first two sentences)?

Change History (3)

comment:1 by Aymeric Augustin, 12 years ago

Description: modified (diff)

comment:2 by Aymeric Augustin, 12 years ago

Easy pickings: set
Triage Stage: UnreviewedAccepted
  1. No, Django does rely on the database for foreign key checks — that's its job!
  2. Yes, the wording could be clarified.

comment:3 by Aymeric Augustin, 12 years ago

Resolution: fixed
Status: newclosed

In [17120]:

Fixed #17267 -- Clarified the description of MyISAM's lack of support for foreign keys.

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