Make sure every entry in a table is unique [duplicate] - php

I have a table:
table votes (
id,
user,
email,
address,
primary key(id),
);
Now I want to make the columns user, email, address unique (together).
How do I do this in MySql?
Of course the example is just... an example. So please don't worry about the semantics.

To add a unique constraint, you need to use two components:
ALTER TABLE - to change the table schema and,
ADD UNIQUE - to add the unique constraint.
You then can define your new unique key with the format 'name'('column1', 'column2'...)
So for your particular issue, you could use this command:
ALTER TABLE `votes` ADD UNIQUE `unique_index`(`user`, `email`, `address`);

I have a MySQL table:
CREATE TABLE `content_html` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`id_box_elements` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`id_router` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`content` mediumtext COLLATE utf8_czech_ci NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
UNIQUE KEY `my_uniq_id` (`id_box_elements`,`id_router`)
);
and the UNIQUE KEY works just as expected, it allows multiple NULL rows of id_box_elements and id_router.
I am running MySQL 5.1.42, so probably there was some update on the issue discussed above. Fortunately it works and hopefully it will stay that way.

Multi column unique indexes do not work in MySQL if you have a NULL value in row as MySQL treats NULL as a unique value and at least currently has no logic to work around it in multi-column indexes. Yes the behavior is insane, because it limits a lot of legitimate applications of multi-column indexes, but it is what it is... As of yet, it is a bug that has been stamped with "will not fix" on the MySQL bug-track...

Have you tried this ?
UNIQUE KEY `thekey` (`user`,`email`,`address`)

This works for mysql version 5.5.32
ALTER TABLE `tablename` ADD UNIQUE (`column1` ,`column2`);

MySql 5 or higher behaves like this (I've just tested):
you can define unique constraints involving nullable columns. Say you define a constraint unique (A, B) where A is not nullable but B is
when evaluating such a constraint you can have (A, null) as many times you want (same A value!)
you can only have one (A, not null B) pair
Example:
PRODUCT_NAME, PRODUCT_VERSION
'glass', null
'glass', null
'wine', 1
Now if you try to insert ('wine' 1) again it will report a constraint violation
Hope this helps

You can add multiple-column unique indexes via phpMyAdmin. (I tested in version 4.0.4)
Navigate to the structure page for your target table. Add a unique index to one of the columns. Expand the Indexes list on the bottom of the structure page to see the unique index you just added. Click the edit icon, and in the following dialog you can add additional columns to that unique index.

this tutorial works for me
ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD CONSTRAINT constraint_name UNIQUE (column1, column2, ... column_n);
https://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-unique-constraint/

I do it like this:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX index_name ON TableName (Column1, Column2, Column3);
My convention for a unique index_name is TableName_Column1_Column2_Column3_uindex.

If You are creating table in mysql then use following :
create table package_template_mapping (
mapping_id int(10) not null auto_increment ,
template_id int(10) NOT NULL ,
package_id int(10) NOT NULL ,
remark varchar(100),
primary key (mapping_id) ,
UNIQUE KEY template_fun_id (template_id , package_id)
);

For adding unique index following are required:
1) table_name
2) index_name
3) columns on which you want to add index
ALTER TABLE `tablename`
ADD UNIQUE index-name
(`column1` ,`column2`,`column3`,...,`columnN`);
In your case we can create unique index as follows:
ALTER TABLE `votes`ADD
UNIQUE <votesuniqueindex>;(`user` ,`email`,`address`);

If you want to avoid duplicates in future. Create another column say id2.
UPDATE tablename SET id2 = id;
Now add the unique on two columns:
alter table tablename add unique index(columnname, id2);

First get rid of existing duplicates
delete a from votes as a, votes as b where a.id < b.id
and a.user <=> b.user and a.email <=> b.email
and a.address <=> b.address;
Then add the unique constraint
ALTER TABLE votes ADD UNIQUE unique_index(user, email, address);
Verify the constraint with
SHOW CREATE TABLE votes;
Note that user, email, address will be considered unique if any of them has null value in it.

For PostgreSQL...
It didn't work for me with index; it gave me an error, so I did this:
alter table table_name
add unique(column_name_1,column_name_2);
PostgreSQL gave unique index its own name. I guess you can change the name of index in the options for the table, if it is needed to be changed...

Related

How to properly index attributes in wordpress database

I am extending a product sales plugin and am trying to understand how wordpress handles database relations. I am building tables on activation using dbDelta. An example of a table schema would be:
$table_schema = [
"CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `{$wpdb->prefix}plugin_orders` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`people_id` bigint(20) DEFAULT NULL,
`order_id` bigint(20) DEFAULT NULL,
`order_status` varchar(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`order_date` datetime DEFAULT NULL,
`order_total` decimal(13,2) DEFAULT NULL,
`accounting` tinyint(4) DEFAULT '0',
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `people_id` (`people_id`),
KEY `order_id` (`order_id`)
) $collate;",
"CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `{$wpdb->prefix}plugin_order_product` (
`id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`order_id` bigint(20) DEFAULT NULL,
`product_id` bigint(20) DEFAULT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
KEY `order_id` (`order_id`),
KEY `product_id` (`product_id`)
) $collate;"
];
I see that id in each table is the PRIMARY KEY but what does declaring the other KEYs actually do? I have read that wordpress uses MyISAM which doesn't actually build foreign key connections. While these tables may point to other tables already existing, in this example does declaring KEY order_id (order_id) create a variable of sorts called order_id that any other table can use to reference? Is this code specifically connecting one tables attributes to another tables attributes (it doesn't appear to be)? After these tables are built, I can inspect them in phpMyAdmin and see that there are indexes assigned but no foreign key constraints. How does this code create tables that point one table at another to build relations?
KEY `foo_bar` (`order_id`)
"KEY" is the same as "INDEX". It specifies that a separate data structure is maintained for the efficient access of the table via the column order_id.
foo_bar is the name of the index. It has no special meaning, and has very few uses. For example, DROP KEY foo_bar; is the way to get rid of the index.
In MyISAM, a "FOREIGN KEY" allowed, but ignored. In InnoDB, it does two things:
Create an index if one is not already provided
Provide a constraint. The default effectively "complain if the other table does not already have the value referenced".
Having an index is important for performance. The index above make this
SELECT ... WHERE order_id = 1234 ...
run in milliseconds, even if there are billions of rows in the table. Without the index, the query would take minutes or hours.
A PRIMARY KEY is a UNIQUE key, which is an INDEX.
UNIQUE(widget) says that only one row can have a particular value of `widget in the table.
PRIMARY KEY(id) says that each row is uniquely identified by the column id. InnoDB really wants each table to have a PK.
"id" is a convention (not a requirement) for the name of the PK. It is also INT AUTO_INCREMENT by convention. You may or may not actually ever touch id.
Tables can be related to each other in 3 main ways:
1:1 -- They share the same unique key. This is rarely useful; you may as well have a single table.
1:many -- An "order" has several "items" in it (one-order : many-items). This is usually handled by order_id being a column in the items table.
many:many -- students_classes -- each student is in many classes; each class has many students. This is implemented via a mapping table that has (usually) only two columns: student_id and class_id (no id is needed) and PRIMARY KEY(student_id, class_id) and INDEX(class_id, student_id). Those two indexes make it efficient to go from a known student to their classes, and vice versa.
Another convention for the PK of a table is to include the table name. (It is clutter to do that for other columns, such as order_status.) I was assuming this convention for student_id and class_id.
But now I am confused by your plugin_orders -- it has both id and order_id. If that table describes "orders", then I would expect order_id to be the PK instead of id.
And, if order_product is a list of all the "products" in each "order", then I would expect you to have the 1:many pattern.
What indexes to have?
PRIMARY KEY to uniquely identify each row -- either id or some column (or combination of columns) that are unique.
Other columns, as needed, for the SELECTs, UPDATEs, and DELETEs that you have. Do not blindly add indexes before having some clues of the queries that might need them.
Indexes sometimes help in sorting:
SELECT ... ORDER BY last_name, first_name;
together with
INDEX(last_name, first_name)
Indexes provide performance; FKs provide integrity checks. Neither is "required"; both are "desirable".
MyISAM is ancient; you should change to InnoDB.
Then do something like
SELECT ...
FROM plugin_orders AS o
JOIN plugin_order_product AS op
ON o.order_id = op.order_id
WHERE ...
In this example, the Optimizer will perform the query something like this:
Look at the WHERE to see which table is best filtered by the conditions there. Declare that to be the first table work with.
Scan through the first table, using an index if practical.
For each row in the first table, reach into the second table.
Reaching into the second table would probably be done via INDEX(order_id) on the second table. This would make the JOIN fast and efficient.
Both tables have INDEX(order_id), but that is not relevant.
Next example:
SELECT ...
FROM plugin_orders AS o
JOIN plugin_order_product AS op
ON o.order_id = op.order_id
WHERE o.people_id = 123 -- note
Pick o as the first table due to filtering on people_id
use op INDEX(people_id) to rapidly find the o rows that are relevant.
etc (op is the second table)
Next example:
SELECT ...
FROM plugin_orders AS o
JOIN plugin_order_product AS op
ON o.order_id = op.order_id
WHERE op.product_id = 9887 -- changed again
Pick op as the first table due to filtering on product_id
use o INDEX(people_id) to rapidly find the op rows that are relevant.
etc (o is the second table this time)

Mysql duplicate row prevention [duplicate]

I want to add complex unique key to existing table. Key contains from 4 fields (user_id, game_id, date, time).
But table have non unique rows.
I understand that I can remove all duplicate dates and after that add complex key.
Maybe exist another solution without searching all duplicate data. (like add unique ignore etc).
UPD
I searched, how can remove duplicate mysql rows - i think it's good solution.
Remove duplicates using only a MySQL query?
You can do as yAnTar advised
ALTER TABLE TABLE_NAME ADD Id INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY
OR
You can add a constraint
ALTER TABLE TABLE_NAME ADD CONSTRAINT constr_ID UNIQUE (user_id, game_id, date, time)
But I think to not lose your existing data, you can add an indentity column and then make a composite key.
The proper syntax would be - ALTER TABLE Table_Name ADD UNIQUE (column_name)
Example
ALTER TABLE 0_value_addition_setup ADD UNIQUE (`value_code`)
I had to solve a similar problem. I inherited a large source table from MS Access with nearly 15000 records that did not have a primary key, which I had to normalize and make CakePHP compatible. One convention of CakePHP is that every table has a the primary key, that it is first column and that it is called 'id'. The following simple statement did the trick for me under MySQL 5.5:
ALTER TABLE `database_name`.`table_name`
ADD COLUMN `id` INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT FIRST,
ADD PRIMARY KEY (`id`);
This added a new column 'id' of type integer in front of the existing data ("FIRST" keyword). The AUTO_INCREMENT keyword increments the ids starting with 1. Now every dataset has a unique numerical id. (Without the AUTO_INCREMENT statement all rows are populated with id = 0).
Set Multiple Unique key into table
ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD CONSTRAINT UC_table_name UNIQUE (field1,field2);
I am providing my solution with the assumption on your business logic. Basically in my design I will allow the table to store only one record for a user-game combination. So I will add a composite key to the table.
PRIMARY KEY (`user_id`,`game_id`)
Either create an auto-increment id or a UNIQUE id and add it to the natural key you are talking about with the 4 fields. this will make every row in the table unique...
For MySQL:
ALTER TABLE MyTable ADD MyId INT AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY;
If yourColumnName has some values doesn't unique, and now you wanna add an unique index for it. Try this:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX [IDX_Name] ON yourTableName (yourColumnName) WHERE [id]>1963 --1963 is max(id)-1
Now, try to insert some values are exists for test.

php MySql 2 column as index and 1 as another index?

I'm using php and i have a table that have 2 column of varchar , one is used for user identification, and the other is used for page name entry.
they both must be varchar.
i want to insert ignore data when user enter a page to know if he visited it or not, and i want to fetch all the rows that the user have been in.
fetch all for first varchar column.
insert if not exist for both values.
I'm hoping to do it in the most efficient way.
what is the best way to insert without checking with another query if exist?
what is the best way other then:
SELECT * FROM table WHERE id = id
to fetch when the column needed is varchar?
You should consider a normalized table structure like this:
CREATE TABLE user (
id INT UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(100)
);
CREATE TABLE page (
id INT UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
name VARCHAR(100)
);
CREATE TABLE pages_visted (
id INT UNSIGNED AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
user_id INT UNSIGNED,
page_id INT UNSIGNED,
UNIQUE KEY (user_id, page_id)
);
INSERT IGNORE INTO pages_visted (user_id, page_id) VALUES (:userId, :pageId);
SELECT page_id FROM pages_visted WHERE user_id = :userId;
I think you want to implement a composite primary key.
A composite primary key tells MySQL that you want your primary key to be a combination of fields.
More info here: Why use multiple columns as primary keys (composite primary key)
I don't know of a better option for your query, although I can advise, if possible:
Define columns to be NOT NULL. This gives you faster processing and requires less storage. It will also simplify queries sometimes because you don't need to check for NULL as a special case.
And with variable-length rows, you get more fragmentation in tables where you perform many deletes or updates due to the differing sizes of the records. You'll need to run OPTIMIZE TABLE periodically to maintain performance.

Insert data from PHP to MySQL ONLY if multiples values don't exist in multiple columns [duplicate]

I have a table:
table votes (
id,
user,
email,
address,
primary key(id),
);
Now I want to make the columns user, email, address unique (together).
How do I do this in MySql?
Of course the example is just... an example. So please don't worry about the semantics.
To add a unique constraint, you need to use two components:
ALTER TABLE - to change the table schema and,
ADD UNIQUE - to add the unique constraint.
You then can define your new unique key with the format 'name'('column1', 'column2'...)
So for your particular issue, you could use this command:
ALTER TABLE `votes` ADD UNIQUE `unique_index`(`user`, `email`, `address`);
I have a MySQL table:
CREATE TABLE `content_html` (
`id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`id_box_elements` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`id_router` int(11) DEFAULT NULL,
`content` mediumtext COLLATE utf8_czech_ci NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
UNIQUE KEY `my_uniq_id` (`id_box_elements`,`id_router`)
);
and the UNIQUE KEY works just as expected, it allows multiple NULL rows of id_box_elements and id_router.
I am running MySQL 5.1.42, so probably there was some update on the issue discussed above. Fortunately it works and hopefully it will stay that way.
Multi column unique indexes do not work in MySQL if you have a NULL value in row as MySQL treats NULL as a unique value and at least currently has no logic to work around it in multi-column indexes. Yes the behavior is insane, because it limits a lot of legitimate applications of multi-column indexes, but it is what it is... As of yet, it is a bug that has been stamped with "will not fix" on the MySQL bug-track...
Have you tried this ?
UNIQUE KEY `thekey` (`user`,`email`,`address`)
This works for mysql version 5.5.32
ALTER TABLE `tablename` ADD UNIQUE (`column1` ,`column2`);
MySql 5 or higher behaves like this (I've just tested):
you can define unique constraints involving nullable columns. Say you define a constraint unique (A, B) where A is not nullable but B is
when evaluating such a constraint you can have (A, null) as many times you want (same A value!)
you can only have one (A, not null B) pair
Example:
PRODUCT_NAME, PRODUCT_VERSION
'glass', null
'glass', null
'wine', 1
Now if you try to insert ('wine' 1) again it will report a constraint violation
Hope this helps
You can add multiple-column unique indexes via phpMyAdmin. (I tested in version 4.0.4)
Navigate to the structure page for your target table. Add a unique index to one of the columns. Expand the Indexes list on the bottom of the structure page to see the unique index you just added. Click the edit icon, and in the following dialog you can add additional columns to that unique index.
this tutorial works for me
ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD CONSTRAINT constraint_name UNIQUE (column1, column2, ... column_n);
https://www.mysqltutorial.org/mysql-unique-constraint/
I do it like this:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX index_name ON TableName (Column1, Column2, Column3);
My convention for a unique index_name is TableName_Column1_Column2_Column3_uindex.
If You are creating table in mysql then use following :
create table package_template_mapping (
mapping_id int(10) not null auto_increment ,
template_id int(10) NOT NULL ,
package_id int(10) NOT NULL ,
remark varchar(100),
primary key (mapping_id) ,
UNIQUE KEY template_fun_id (template_id , package_id)
);
For adding unique index following are required:
1) table_name
2) index_name
3) columns on which you want to add index
ALTER TABLE `tablename`
ADD UNIQUE index-name
(`column1` ,`column2`,`column3`,...,`columnN`);
In your case we can create unique index as follows:
ALTER TABLE `votes`ADD
UNIQUE <votesuniqueindex>;(`user` ,`email`,`address`);
If you want to avoid duplicates in future. Create another column say id2.
UPDATE tablename SET id2 = id;
Now add the unique on two columns:
alter table tablename add unique index(columnname, id2);
First get rid of existing duplicates
delete a from votes as a, votes as b where a.id < b.id
and a.user <=> b.user and a.email <=> b.email
and a.address <=> b.address;
Then add the unique constraint
ALTER TABLE votes ADD UNIQUE unique_index(user, email, address);
Verify the constraint with
SHOW CREATE TABLE votes;
Note that user, email, address will be considered unique if any of them has null value in it.
For PostgreSQL...
It didn't work for me with index; it gave me an error, so I did this:
alter table table_name
add unique(column_name_1,column_name_2);
PostgreSQL gave unique index its own name. I guess you can change the name of index in the options for the table, if it is needed to be changed...

Avoiding duplicate entries in an mySQL table with non unique columns

I am working on a CMS system (largely as a learning exercise) for a private website. Atm I have three tables: one for articles, one for tags and a joining table so that each article can have multiple tags.
The table I am having issues with consists of three columns -
article_tags: id (auto_increment), article_id, tag_id
My problem stems from the fact that an article can appear any number of times, and a tag can also appear any number of times, however a given combination of the two should only appear once - that is, each article should only have one reference to any single tag. Currently it is possible to INSERT "duplicate" rows where the id is different, but the combination of article_id and tag_id are the same:
id , article_id, tag_id
1 1 1
2 1 2
3 2 1
4 1 1 <- this is wrong
I could check in PHP code for a record that contains this combination, but I'd prefer to do it in sql if possible (if it is not, or it is undesirable then I will do it using PHP). Due to the id being different and the inability to set unique columns things like INSERT IGNORE and ON DUPLICATE do not work.
I'm quite new to mySQL so if I'm doing something silly please point me in the right direction.
Thanks
You should review your table definition.
You can (from best to worst):
Add a composite primary key on (article_id and tag_id) and remove auto_increment (previous primary key)
Add an index (UNIQUE) on (article_id and tag_id) and keep your auto_increment primary key
Select distinct in php: SELECT DISTINCT(article_id, tag_id) FROM
... without changing anything in your table
Right now, your table is defined as something like this:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `article_tags` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`article_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`tag_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci;
The best solution (option 1) would be to remove your current (auto_increment) primary key and add a primary key (composite) on columns article_id and tag_id:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `article_tags` (
`article_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`tag_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`article_id`,`tag_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci;
But (option 2) if you absolutely want to keep your auto_increment primary key, add an index (unique) on your columns:
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `article_tags` (
`id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
`article_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
`tag_id` int(11) NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
UNIQUE KEY `article_id` (`article_id`,`tag_id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 COLLATE=utf8_unicode_ci;
Anyway, if you don't want to change your table definition, you could always use DISTINCT in your php query:
SELECT DISTINCT(article_id, tag_id) FROM article_tags
Such many-to-many relationship tables, sometimes called join tables, often have just two columns, and have a primary key that's a composite of the two.
article_id
tag_id
pk = (article_id, tag_id)
If you change the definition of that table you will definitively solve that problem.
How should you order the columns in composite keys? It depends on how your application will look up items in the join table. If you'll always start with the article_id and look up the tag_id, then you put the article_id first in the key. The DBMS can random-access values for the first column in the key, but has to scan the index to find values in second (or subsequent) columns in the key.
You may want to create a second index on the table, (tag_id, article_id). This will allow fast lookups based on the tag_id. You may ask, "why bother to put both columns in the index?" That's to make the index into a covering index. In a covering index, the desired value can be retrieved directly from the index. For example, with a covering index,
SELECT article_id FROM article_tag WHERE tag_id = 12345
(or a JOIN that uses similar lookup logic) only needs to access the index on the disk drive to get the result. If you don't have a covering index, the query needs to jump from the index to the data table, which is an extra step.
Join tables typically have very short rows (a couple of integers) so the duplicated data for a couple of covering indexes (the primary key and the extra one) isn't a big disk-space hog.

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