Enforcement of unique/primary key - drop index

Question 1

You can query the ALL_CONSTRAINTS performance view to see which constraint the index is used by, and which table it applies to, e.g:

select owner, constraint_name, constraint_type,
    table_name, index_owner, index_name
from all_constraints
where index_name = 'PK_CHARGES';

I would expect the table name to be 'CHARGES', the constraint name to match the index name, and the constraint type to be 'P'. But since you have a table in mind, perhaps the names aren't following a helpful convention. Maybe an old version of the table was renamed, which would leave the constraints against the new name (e.g. CHARGES_BACKUP or something).

You said you click on the table, then on the view. Perhaps you're not looking at the table that the constraint/index is on; or perhaps you're looking at a view on top of the actual table. You also mention a SYS_ index on the same columns - which can't be on the same table. Do you have multiple similar tables, or access to multiple schemas? You shold run the above query for that index too. As mentions above, you might find an old version (or versions) of the table.

Once you've identified which table the constraint is on, you'll need to decide whether you should actually be keeping it, and if not you can remove it by dropping the constraint with an ALTER TABLE command.

Question 2

The problem with

But I found this weird index that I dont rember I hadve add

comes because you didn't add it. You had a primary key, then you dropped it, but when you do that Oracle doesn't drop the associated unique index that every primary key has.

So when you drop a primary key you have to drop the unique index of that primary key, that amazingly has the same name as the primary key had.

So for dropping a MY_TABLE_PK you must do:

ALTER TABLE MY_TABLE DROP PRIMARY KEY DROP INDEX;

so you ensure that the index is dropped as well.

Question 3

"from pl/sql I right click on the table"

The problem with IDEs is that they make us feel very productive, because we can do things with just a click instead of writing some code. This is a problem because when something unusual happens the IDE is no good for investigation and we lack the understanding of the underlying structure of the database which we need to help ourselves.

If you want to learn the Oracle database the worst thing you can do is download SQL Developer or PLSQL Developer or TOAD. They're all fine tools but the only people who should use them are the people who don't need to use them.

Question 4

the following worked for me with unique index:

ALTER INDEX UX_CHARGES UNUSABLE
/

DROP INDEX UX_CHARGES
/

see: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18283_01/server.112/e17120/indexes004.htm#insertedID3