How to truncate a foreign key constrained table?

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5452760

Question

Why doesn't a TRUNCATE on mygroup work? Even though I have ON DELETE CASCADE SET I get:

ERROR 1701 (42000): Cannot truncate a table referenced in a foreign key constraint (mytest.instance, CONSTRAINT instance_ibfk_1 FOREIGN KEY (GroupID) REFERENCES mytest.mygroup (ID))

drop database mytest;
create database mytest;
use mytest;

CREATE TABLE mygroup (
   ID    INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY
) ENGINE=InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE instance (
   ID           INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
   GroupID      INT NOT NULL,
   DateTime     DATETIME DEFAULT NULL,

   FOREIGN KEY  (GroupID) REFERENCES mygroup(ID) ON DELETE CASCADE,
   UNIQUE(GroupID)
) ENGINE=InnoDB;
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Solution

You cannot TRUNCATE a table that has FK constraints applied on it (TRUNCATE is not the same as DELETE).

To work around this, use either of these solutions. Both present risks of damaging the data integrity.

Option 1:

  1. Remove constraints
  2. Perform TRUNCATE
  3. Delete manually the rows that now have references to nowhere
  4. Create constraints

Option 2: suggested by user447951 in their answer

SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0; 
TRUNCATE table $table_name; 
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;

OTHER TIPS

Yes you can:

SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 0;

TRUNCATE table1;
TRUNCATE table2;

SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS = 1;

With these statements, you risk letting in rows into your tables that do not adhere to the FOREIGN KEY constraints.

I would simply do it with :

DELETE FROM mytest.instance;
ALTER TABLE mytest.instance AUTO_INCREMENT = 1;

you can do

DELETE FROM `mytable` WHERE `id` > 0

As per mysql documentation, TRUNCATE cannot be used on tables with foreign key relationships. There is no complete alternative AFAIK.

Dropping the contraint still does not invoke the ON DELETE and ON UPDATE. The only solution I can ATM think of is to either:

  • delete all rows, drop the foreign keys, truncate, recreate keys
  • delete all rows, reset auto_increment (if used)

It would seem TRUNCATE in MySQL is not a complete feature yet (it also does not invoke triggers). See comment

While this question was asked I didn't know about it, but now if you use phpMyAdmin you can simply open the database and select the table(s) you want to truncate.

  • At the bottom there is a drop down with many options. Open it and select Empty option under the heading Delete data or table.
  • It takes you to the next page automatically where there is an option in checkbox called Enable foreign key checks. Just unselect it and press the Yes button and the selected table(s) will be truncated.

Maybe it internally runs the query suggested in user447951's answer, but it is very convenient to use from phpMyAdmin interface.

Easy if you are using phpMyAdmin.

Just uncheck Enable foreign key checks option under SQL tab and run TRUNCATE <TABLE_NAME>

enter image description here

Answer is indeed the one provided by zerkms, as stated on Option 1:

Option 1: which does not risk damage to data integrity:

  1. Remove constraints
  2. Perform TRUNCATE
  3. Delete manually the rows that now have references to nowhere
  4. Create constraints

The tricky part is Removing constraints, so I want to tell you how, in case someone needs to know how to do that:

  1. Run SHOW CREATE TABLE <Table Name> query to see what is your FOREIGN KEY's name (Red frame in below image):

    enter image description here

  2. Run ALTER TABLE <Table Name> DROP FOREIGN KEY <Foreign Key Name>. This will remove the foreign key constraint.

  3. Drop the associated Index (through table structure page), and you are done.

to re-create foreign keys:

ALTER TABLE <Table Name>
ADD FOREIGN KEY (<Field Name>) REFERENCES <Foreign Table Name>(<Field Name>);

Just use CASCADE

TRUNCATE "products" RESTART IDENTITY CASCADE;

But be ready for cascade deletes )

If the database engine for tables differ you will get this error so change them to InnoDB

ALTER TABLE my_table ENGINE = InnoDB;

Getting the old foreign key check state and sql mode are best way to truncate / Drop the table as Mysql Workbench do while synchronizing model to database.

SET @OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS=@@UNIQUE_CHECKS, UNIQUE_CHECKS=0;
SET @OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@@FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS, FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=0;`
SET @OLD_SQL_MODE=@@SQL_MODE, SQL_MODE='TRADITIONAL,ALLOW_INVALID_DATES';

DROP TABLE TABLE_NAME;
TRUNCATE TABLE_NAME;

SET SQL_MODE=@OLD_SQL_MODE;
SET FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS=@OLD_FOREIGN_KEY_CHECKS;
SET UNIQUE_CHECKS=@OLD_UNIQUE_CHECKS;
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