Enforcement of unique/primary key - drop index - oracle

I am trying to drop an index :
DROP INDEX PK_CHARGES
but I get this error
cannot drop index used for enforcement of unique/primary key
Why I am getting this error? I will provide further information if you need any.
How to solve it?
Edit I have no primary key in the table, but I found this weird index that I don't remember I had added:
index name = SYS_C0040476 which have the same columns

You can query the ALL_CONSTRAINTS performance view to see which constraint the index is used by, and which table it applies to, e.g:
select owner, constraint_name, constraint_type,
table_name, index_owner, index_name
from all_constraints
where index_name = 'PK_CHARGES';
I would expect the table name to be 'CHARGES', the constraint name to match the index name, and the constraint type to be 'P'. But since you have a table in mind, perhaps the names aren't following a helpful convention. Maybe an old version of the table was renamed, which would leave the constraints against the new name (e.g. CHARGES_BACKUP or something).
You said you click on the table, then on the view. Perhaps you're not looking at the table that the constraint/index is on; or perhaps you're looking at a view on top of the actual table. You also mention a SYS_ index on the same columns - which can't be on the same table. Do you have multiple similar tables, or access to multiple schemas? You shold run the above query for that index too. As mentions above, you might find an old version (or versions) of the table.
Once you've identified which table the constraint is on, you'll need to decide whether you should actually be keeping it, and if not you can remove it by dropping the constraint with an ALTER TABLE command.

The problem with
But I found this weird index that I dont rember I hadve add
comes because you didn't add it. You had a primary key, then you dropped it, but when you do that Oracle doesn't drop the associated unique index that every primary key has.
So when you drop a primary key you have to drop the unique index of that primary key, that amazingly has the same name as the primary key had.
So for dropping a MY_TABLE_PK you must do:
ALTER TABLE MY_TABLE DROP PRIMARY KEY DROP INDEX;
so you ensure that the index is dropped as well.

"from pl/sql I right click on the table"
The problem with IDEs is that they make us feel very productive, because we can do things with just a click instead of writing some code. This is a problem because when something unusual happens the IDE is no good for investigation and we lack the understanding of the underlying structure of the database which we need to help ourselves.
If you want to learn the Oracle database the worst thing you can do is download SQL Developer or PLSQL Developer or TOAD. They're all fine tools but the only people who should use them are the people who don't need to use them.

the following worked for me with unique index:
ALTER INDEX UX_CHARGES UNUSABLE
/
DROP INDEX UX_CHARGES
/
see: https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E18283_01/server.112/e17120/indexes004.htm#insertedID3

Related

Is Oracle alter table drop constraint drop index syntactically valid?

I have Oracle 11.2.0.2.0 and a table with unique constraint created by following script:
create table foo (id varchar(26) not null, name varchar(50) not null);
alter table foo add constraint pk_foo primary key (id);
/**/
alter table foo add constraint un_foo unique (name);
I need to drop the unique constraint, which is easy:
alter table foo drop constraint un_foo;
The trouble is: when the database is backuped in SQL Developer and then restored, then the un_foo unique index is created by explicit command placed at /**/ line:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX un_foo ON foo (name);
Such an explicitly-created index is not deleted by the alter command above. I realized following command works:
alter table foo drop constraint un_foo drop index;
For primary key, similar command alter table foo drop primary key drop index is in documentation or in Oracle Developer Community discussion. Also, this answer at AskTom uses this syntax too (for keep index). However I don't see any reasoning for such syntax in railroad diagram of alter table command.
Question: is the syntax alter table foo drop constraint un_foo drop index legal? If so, based on what documentation or flow in railroad diagram? If not, why the command doesn't fail?
Thanks!
According to #Chris Saxon's answer to my equivalent question posted to AskTom, the syntax is confirmed as working but not present in documentation.
The decision whether it is doc bug or unintended side effect is still unresolved.
I personally decided to rely on the syntax since, among other things, it is advised also in My Oracle Support.
If absolute safety (read: conforming to the documentation) is required, the only possibility is to use statement alter table foo drop unique (name) drop index;.
I summarized (not so substantial) circumstances around this issue in blogpost (in Czech).

Make an Oracle foreign key constraint referencing USER_SEQUENCES(SEQUENCE_NAME)?

I want to create a table with a column that references the name of a sequence I've also created. Ideally, I'd like to have a foreign key constraint that enforces this. I've tried
create table testtable (
sequence_name varchar2(128),
constraint testtableconstr
foreign key (sequence_name)
references user_sequences (sequence_name)
on delete set null
);
but I'm getting a SQL Error: ORA-01031: insufficient privileges. I suspect either this just isn't possible, or I need to add something like on update cascade. What, if anything, can I do to enforce this constraint when I insert rows into this table?
I assume you're trying to build some sort of deployment management system to keep track of your schema objects including sequences.
To do what you ask, you might explore one of the following options:
Run a report after each deployment that compares the values in your table vs. the data dictionary view, and lists any discrepancies.
Create a DDL trigger which does the insert automatically whenever a sequence is created.
Add a trigger to the table which does a query on the sequences view and raises an exception if not found.
I'm somewhat confused at what you are trying to achieve here - a sequence (effectively) only has a single value, the next number to be allocated, not all the values that have been previously allocated.
If you simply want to ensure that an attribute in the relation is populated from the sequence, then a trigger would be the right approach.

ORA-00955 "name is already used by an existing object"

I need to modify an existing PK. Therefore I drop an recreate it.
ALTER TABLE B DROP CONSTRAINT PK_B;
ALTER TABLE B ADD CONSTRAINT PK_B PRIMARY KEY ("TYP", "NR", "HH", "QUART");
Unfortunately the last Statement will give me an error ORA-00955
If I create the PK constraint like it was defined originally with:
ALTER TABLE B ADD CONSTRAINT PK_B PRIMARY KEY ("TYP", "NR", "HH");
everything works fine.
Perhaps there is an INDEX associated with the PRIMARY KEY CONSTRAINT, and it is also named as PK_B.
You can check it as :
SELECT * FROM USER_INDEXES WHERE TABLE_NAME='<table_name>';
If that's true, then do :
ALTER INDEX "PK_B" RENAME TO "PK_XYZ";
Update : Regarding ALTER INDEX statement, few important points as mentioned by Justin in the comments
Oracle implicitly creates an UNIQUE index to support the PRIMARY KEY CONSTRAINT. Since, the index is of the same name that of the primary key, and now that the primary key is being modified, it is better to drop and re-create the index again as per the definition of the old primary key.
My conclusion :
The primary key constraint is enforced through a unique index.
If Oracle already finds an index – unique or non-unique – it uses it
for the primary key.
If the index was initially created as non-unique, it will continue to
show as non-unique, however it will actually be a unique index.
A good demonstration and quite detailed on other aspects too, by Arup : Primary Keys Guarantee Uniqueness? Think Again.
I had the same issue where I had to do the following to delete reference to a table from the view whilst recreating the database from the scratch. I was searching for the same in tables and indexes first.
connect sys/oracle as sysdba;
select * from all_tables
select * from all_indexes
(finally located the reference in the views)
select * from all_views where view_name like '%WKSTSTATE%';
drop view RUEGEN.WKSTSTATE;

MiniProfiler SqlServerStorage becomes quite slow

We use mini profiler in two ways:
On developer machines with the pop-up
In our staging/prod environments with SqlServerStorage storing to MS SQL
After a few weeks we find that writing to the profiling DB takes a long time (seconds), and is causing real issues on the site. Truncating all profiler tables resolves the issue.
Looking through the SqlServerStorage code, it appears the inserts also do a check to make sure a row with that id doesnt already exist. Is this to ensure DB agnostic code? This seems it would introduce a massive penalty as the number of rows increases.
How would I go about removing the performance penalty from the performance profiler? Is anyone else experiencing this slow down? Or is it something we are doing wrong?
Cheers for any help or advice.
Hmm, it looks like I made a huge mistake in how that MiniProfilers table was created when I forgot about primary key being clustered by default... and the clustered index is a GUID column, a very big no-no.
Because data is physically stored on disk in the same order as the clustered index (indeed, one could say the table is the clustered index), SQL Server has to keep every newly inserted row in that physical order. This becomes a nightmare to keep sorted when we're using essentially a random number.
The fix is to add an auto-increasing int and switch the primary key to that, just like all the other tables (why I overlooked this, I don't remember... we don't use this storage provider here on Stack Overflow or this issue would have been found long ago).
I'll update the table creation scripts and provide you with something to migrate your current table in a bit.
Edit
After looking at this again, the main MiniProfilers table could just be a heap, meaning no clustered index. All access to the rows is by that guid ID column, so no physical ordering would help.
If you don't want to recreate your MiniProfiler sql tables, you can use this script to make the primary key nonclustered:
-- first remove the clustered index from the primary key
declare #clusteredIndex varchar(50);
select #clusteredIndex = name
from sys.indexes
where type_desc = 'CLUSTERED'
and object_name(object_id) = 'MiniProfilers';
exec ('alter table MiniProfilers drop constraint ' + #clusteredIndex);
-- and then make it non-clustered
alter table MiniProfilers add constraint
PK_MiniProfilers primary key nonclustered (Id);
Another Edit
Alrighty, I've updated the creation scripts and added indexes for most querying - see the code here in GitHub.
I would highly recommended dropping all your existing tables and rerunning the updated script.

Alter a nonunique index to a unique index

I have a few non-unique constraints that I want to alter into unique constraints ( business rules have changed since the data model was made ). Is there any way to do it with out dropping and recreating as a unique constraint? I was thinking there would be an option in the alter constraint command, but I have not found anything.
Thanks!!
You cannot convert a non-unique index into a unique index.
(It's difficult to say what cannot be done. I'm basing this answer on looking at the ALTER INDEX page of the SQL Language Reference, searching for the word UNIQUE, and not finding any relevant hints. I looked at 11g instead of 10g, but that's probably better in this case because there are a few features that exist in 10g but are only documented in 11g.)
However, you can use a non-unique index for a unique constraint. But there are some performance considerations: a unique index would be smaller and faster.
create table my_table(a number);
create index my_table_index on my_table(a);
alter table my_table add constraint my_table_unique unique (a)
using index my_table_index;
You can't modify a constraint in the way you wish you can only drop and recreate it. If you want to do this with no downtime then look into the DBMS_REDEFINITION package.
In my case, just do drop and re-create the index:
DROP INDEX index_name;
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX index_name ON table_name (col01,col02) TABLESPACE indx;

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