Tag: primary key

[adsense id=”0514458240″ width=”468″ height=”60″]

MySQL offers a nice feature which both gets rid of duplicates and adds a unique/primary key. The syntax for the MySQL command is ALTER IGNORE TABLE table_name which allows you to either add a unique key or a primary key.

Here is an example:

mysql> create table emp(emp_id int, name varchar(100), salary decimal(5,0));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> insert into emp(emp_id, name, salary) values (1,'Ron',1000),(2,'Tom',1100),(3,'Dick',1000),(3,'Harry',1250);
Query OK, 4 rows affected (0.01 sec)
Records: 4  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> select * from emp;
+--------+-------+--------+
| emp_id | name  | salary |
+--------+-------+--------+
|      1 | Ron   |   1000 |
|      2 | Tom   |   1100 |
|      3 | Dick  |   1000 |
|      3 | Harry |   1250 |
+--------+-------+--------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> alter table emp add constraint primary key (emp_id);
ERROR 1062 (23000): Duplicate entry '3' for key 'PRIMARY'
mysql> alter ignore table emp add constraint primary key (emp_id);
Query OK, 4 rows affected, 1 warning (0.03 sec)
Records: 4  Duplicates: 1  Warnings: 1

mysql> select * from emp;
+--------+------+--------+
| emp_id | name | salary |
+--------+------+--------+
|      1 | Ron  |   1000 |
|      2 | Tom  |   1100 |
|      3 | Dick |   1000 |
+--------+------+--------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

To identify the entries that have a duplicate we can issue the following SQL.

mysql> drop table emp;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> create table emp(emp_id int, name varchar(100), salary decimal(5,0));
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

mysql> insert into emp(emp_id, name, salary) values (1,'Ron',1000),(2,'Tom',1100),(3,'Dick',1000),(3,'Harry',1250);
Query OK, 4 rows affected (0.01 sec)
Records: 4  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql> select * from emp;
+--------+-------+--------+
| emp_id | name  | salary |
+--------+-------+--------+
|      1 | Ron   |   1000 |
|      2 | Tom   |   1100 |
|      3 | Dick  |   1000 |
|      3 | Harry |   1250 |
+--------+-------+--------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> select emp_id
    -> from emp
    -> group by emp_id
    -> having count(*) > 1;
+--------+
| emp_id |
+--------+
|      3 |
+--------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)