Jan
09

MySQL, the strange case of a timestamp field

I discovered a feature (or bug) of MySQL timestamp fields. Maybe is documented in some place what I not read yet:

When I add a new timestamp field to a table, MySQL magically adds some features to new timestamp field like a “trigger” and a default value to CURRENT_TIMESTAMP.

There is test-case script:

-- CREATING TABLE AND INSERT SOME DUMMY DATA
mysql> CREATE TABLE t(
    -> id INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT,
    -> val VARCHAR(50)
    -> );
Query OK, 0 ROWS affected (0.15 sec)
 
mysql> INSERT INTO t (val) VALUES ("foo") ,("var");
Query OK, 2 ROWS affected (0.08 sec)
Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0
 
mysql> SELECT * FROM t;
+----+------+
| id | val  |
+----+------+
|  1 | foo  |
|  2 | var  |
+----+------+
2 ROWS IN SET (0.00 sec)
 
 
-- ADDING NEW TIMESTAMP FIELD AND ADD MORE DUMMY DATA
mysql> ALTER TABLE t ADD ts_field TIMESTAMP;
Query OK, 2 ROWS affected (0.35 sec)
Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0
 
mysql> INSERT INTO t (val) VALUES ("foo 2") ,("var 2");
Query OK, 2 ROWS affected (0.06 sec)
Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0
 
-- THERE IS THE MAGIC:
mysql> SELECT * FROM t;
+----+-------+---------------------+
| id | val   | ts_field            |
+----+-------+---------------------+
|  1 | foo   | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 |
|  2 | var   | 0000-00-00 00:00:00 |
|  3 | foo 2 | 2013-01-09 23:20:01 |    <---
|  4 | var 2 | 2013-01-09 23:20:01 |    <---
+----+-------+---------------------+
4 ROWS IN SET (0.00 sec)

What happened? I dont know.

The new table structure is:

CREATE TABLE `t` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `val` varchar(50) DEFAULT NULL,
  `ts_field` timestamp NOT NULL DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON UPDATE CURRENT_TIMESTAMP,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=5 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1

It only happens if the table doesn’t have another timestamp field yet.

Now, this is useful? maybe. This is a bug? maybe.

Update: This is a feature documented in https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.5/en/timestamp-initialization.html, sorry about my lapsus-post.

Mar
12

MySQL must improve error messages

I just finished a database modification, a new foreign key creation  shouldn’t be take more than 5 mins, but I spent 2 hours because MySQL still have some useless error messages.

There is a way to create a new foreign key:

-- Create two tables foo and bar
CREATE TABLE foo (
	id INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
	bar_id INT NOT NULL    -- foreign key
);
CREATE TABLE bar (
	id INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY
);
-- Try to create a foreign key on `foo`
ALTER TABLE foo
	ADD FOREIGN KEY(bar_id) REFERENCES bar(SOME_FIELD) ;

The last sentence returns a generic error message:

Error Code: 1005. Can't create table 'temp.#sql-4bd7_11' (errno: 150)

Everything would have been easier if I had noticed that wrong field name bar(SOME_FIELD), sometimes happens,  but if MySQL would have shown a different message like "field bar.SOME_FIELD don't exists" I would not be awake until 2 am.

I’m using MySQL 5.5.21 community edition.

if I had noticed that wrong field name

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