DROP all foreign keys in MYSQL database

Foreign keys are causing me too many problems modifying an database structure to meet new requirements – I want to modify primary keys but it seems I can’t when foreign keys reference the table in question (I think because MySQL drops the table and re-creates).

So while I work on the DB, I’d like to simply remove all the foreign keys and re-create them later. Is there a neat way to do so?

Answers:

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Method 1

Run

SELECT concat('ALTER TABLE ', TABLE_NAME, ' DROP FOREIGN KEY ', CONSTRAINT_NAME, ';') 
FROM information_schema.key_column_usage 
WHERE CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA = 'db_name' 
AND referenced_table_name IS NOT NULL;

and run the output.

Method 2

You can simply issue the following command before any Alter Table statements you are going to make:

SET foreign_key_checks = 0;

This will turn off foreign key constraint checks for your database connection. You can then make your changes without needing to worry about constraints.

After you are done, don’t forget to issue:

SET foreign_key_checks = 1;

To turn them back on.

Note that this will still not allow you to create a new foreign key constraint that would fail because the column data types don’t match.

Method 3

Another version of Zoozy code, here you can select only a table:

SELECT concat('ALTER TABLE ', TABLE_NAME, ' DROP FOREIGN KEY ', CONSTRAINT_NAME, ';') 
FROM information_schema.key_column_usage 
WHERE CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA = 'YOUR DB HERE' 
AND TABLE_NAME='YOUR TABLE HERE' 
AND REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME IS NOT NULL;

Also with a procedure:

DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS dropForeignKeysFromTable;

delimiter ///
create procedure dropForeignKeysFromTable(IN param_table_schema varchar(255), IN param_table_name varchar(255))
begin
    declare done int default FALSE;
    declare dropCommand varchar(255);
    declare dropCur cursor for 
        select concat('alter table ',table_schema,'.',table_name,' DROP FOREIGN KEY ',constraint_name, ';') 
        from information_schema.table_constraints
        where constraint_type='FOREIGN KEY' 
            and table_name = param_table_name
            and table_schema = param_table_schema;

    declare continue handler for not found set done = true;

    open dropCur;

    read_loop: loop
        fetch dropCur into dropCommand;
        if done then
            leave read_loop;
        end if;

        set @sdropCommand = dropCommand;

        prepare dropClientUpdateKeyStmt from @sdropCommand;

        execute dropClientUpdateKeyStmt;

        deallocate prepare dropClientUpdateKeyStmt;
    end loop;

    close dropCur;
end///

Method 4

If you want to do the same table across multiple databases, don’t forget to put CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA in the output:

SELECT concat('ALTER TABLE ', CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA,'.',TABLE_NAME, ' DROP FOREIGN KEY ', CONSTRAINT_NAME, ';')
FROM information_schema.key_column_usage
WHERE CONSTRAINT_SCHEMA like 'your_db_prefix_%'
    AND TABLE_NAME='your_table'
    AND REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME IS NOT NULL;

All methods was sourced from stackoverflow.com or stackexchange.com, is licensed under cc by-sa 2.5, cc by-sa 3.0 and cc by-sa 4.0