PostgreSQL – Foreign Key with ON DELETE SET NULL for Some Columns

foreign keypostgresqlpostgresql-9.4

I have added a (new) 2nd foreign key to a table a. Its 1st foreign key is optional, hence the constraint ON DELETE SET NULL on the foreign key. The 2nd foreign key is mandatory, hence the (new) constraints NOT NULL on a1 and a2 and (new) the constraint ON DELETE CASCADE on the foreign key. The 2nd foreign key also consists of a subset of the columns for the 1st foreign key.

CREATE TABLE a
(
  a0 INTEGER NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  -- other columns
  a1 INT NOT NULL,
  a2 INT NOT NULL,
  a3 INT,
  a4 INT,
  FOREIGN KEY (a1, a2)         REFERENCES b ON DELETE CASCADE,
  FOREIGN KEY (a1, a2, a3, a4) REFERENCES c ON DELETE SET NULL
);

The problem that I run into is that I can now no longer DELETE FROM c, since this invalidates the NOT NULL constraints on a1 and a2. What I would like to happen in the case of such deletes is for a1, a2 to remain unmodified and for a3, a4 to be set to NULL. Is there a concise syntax (more concise than with an extra DELETE trigger) for defining a constraint that achieves this?

Best Answer

Currently there is no way for the CASCADE action to set only some of the columns to NULL. So the only options I see would be:

have all the 4 columns defined as NULL and use ON DELETE SET NULL action. Seems like this is not an option in your case.
add another table to hold this relationship (where all the columns are not nullable) and use ON DELETE CASCADE.
a trigger.
create a procedure (function in Postgres) to handle deletions of table c. The function would first modify the columns (c,d) in table a and then delete from table c. Then you have to make sure that all users/applications use this function and do not directly delete from table c.

Related Solutions

Sql-server – View foreign key constraints so I can delete a table

And here's how to generate the script @Shark showed for all the tables you want to drop. Let's say you have the following tables:

USE tempdb;
GO

CREATE TABLE dbo.z(z INT PRIMARY KEY); -- we won't delete this one

CREATE TABLE dbo.a
(
 a INT PRIMARY KEY FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES dbo.z(z)
);

CREATE TABLE dbo.b
(
 b INT PRIMARY KEY, 
 a INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES dbo.a(a)
);

CREATE TABLE dbo.c
(
 c INT PRIMARY KEY, 
 b INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES dbo.b(b), 
 a INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES dbo.a(a)
);

-- we won't drop this table either, but we'll need to drop
-- the constraint:

CREATE TABLE dbo.d
(
 d INT, 
 c INT FOREIGN KEY REFERENCES dbo.c(c)
);

But we only want to delete a, b, and c.

-- load the tables you want to delete into a table variable:

DECLARE @tables_to_delete TABLE (t NVARCHAR(512));

INSERT @tables_to_delete VALUES('dbo.a'),('dbo.b'),('dbo.c');


DECLARE @sql NVARCHAR(MAX) = N'';

-- build a list of the foreign keys you'll have to drop first:

SELECT @sql += CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + N'ALTER TABLE ' 
    + QUOTENAME(OBJECT_SCHEMA_NAME(f.parent_object_id))
    + '.' + QUOTENAME(OBJECT_NAME(f.parent_object_id))
    + ' DROP CONSTRAINT ' + QUOTENAME(f.name) + ';'
FROM sys.foreign_keys AS f
INNER JOIN @tables_to_delete AS t
ON f.referenced_object_id = OBJECT_ID(t.t);

-- then the DROP TABLE commands:

SELECT @sql += CHAR(13) + CHAR(10) + N'DROP TABLE '
    + t + ';'
FROM @tables_to_delete;

PRINT @sql;
-- EXEC sp_executesql @sql;

Result (the constraint names will look different if you run this):

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[b] DROP CONSTRAINT [FK__b__a__2D27B809];
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[c] DROP CONSTRAINT [FK__c__a__30F848ED];
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[c] DROP CONSTRAINT [FK__c__b__300424B4];
ALTER TABLE [dbo].[d] DROP CONSTRAINT [FK__d__c__32E0915F];
DROP TABLE dbo.a;
DROP TABLE dbo.b;
DROP TABLE dbo.c;

When you're happy about the result, uncomment the EXEC line.

(Note, you won't be able to validate the script in its entirety when using PRINT if the script is very large. The script is truncated by Management Studio because it still has an archaic limit to how many characters it will show. The string won't be truncated like this when it gets passed to sp_executesql.)

Postgresql – Postgres – Create table with foreign key constraint too slow

Your query got locked waiting for something - my bet is that it was waiting for some other transaction to finish.

When you're doing the create table, just issue (in another psql session):

select * from pg_locks where pid = XXX and not granted;

where xxx is pid of backend doing the create table.

This will show you what is the lock that the create table is waiting for.

Best Answer

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Sql-server – View foreign key constraints so I can delete a table

Postgresql – Postgres – Create table with foreign key constraint too slow

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