dbDelta only creates the last table

Question

I'm using following install function with dbDelta as referring to the codex, articles on SO I watched out for the typical problems with e.g. one space instead of two spaced at the PRIMARY KEY ...

function myplugin_install(){
    global $wpdb;
    $table_name = $wpdb->prefix . "vehicles";       

    $sql = "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $table_name 
    (
        id                  INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
        description         VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,
        PRIMARY KEY  (id)
    );  
    ";

    $sql .= "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $table_name1 
    (
        ...
    )";

    $sql .= "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $table_nameX 
    (
        id                  INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
        art_alarmierung     VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL ,
        PRIMARY KEY  (id)
    );";

require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php');
dbDelta($sql);
echo $wpdb->last_error;

}

dbDelata only stores the last $sql variable. And echo $wpdb->last_error; don't show any errors? Where is my failure?

BR; mybecks

Answer 1

Run dbDelta for each SQL statement seperately:

function myplugin_install(){
    global $wpdb;
    $table_name = $wpdb->prefix . "vehicles";       
    require_once(ABSPATH . 'wp-admin/includes/upgrade.php');

    $sql = "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $table_name 
    (
        id                  INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
        description         VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL,
        PRIMARY KEY  (id)
    );  
    ";
    dbDelta($sql);

    $sql2 = "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $table_name1 
    (
        ...
    )";
    dbDelta($sql2);

    $sql3 = "CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS $table_nameX 
    (
        id                  INT UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT ,
        art_alarmierung     VARCHAR(25) NOT NULL ,
        PRIMARY KEY  (id)
    );";

    dbDelta($sql3);

}

Answer 2

For those trying to understand how some plugins, like WooCommerce, are able to do that without calling dbDelta for every table, the reason is the IF NOT EXISTS part of query. The dbDelta function creates an index based on what comes after CREATE TABLE, so it ends up guessing that all queries create the same table.

If you got here, try to use just CREATE TABLE tablename and it will work :)