ERROR 1452: Cannot add or update a child row: a fo

Question

I have created tables in MySQL Workbench as shown below :

ORDRE table:

CREATE TABLE Ordre (
  OrdreID   INT NOT NULL,
  OrdreDato DATE DEFAULT NULL,
  KundeID   INT  DEFAULT NULL,
  CONSTRAINT Ordre_pk PRIMARY KEY (OrdreID),
  CONSTRAINT Ordre_fk FOREIGN KEY (KundeID) REFERENCES Kunde (KundeID)
)
  ENGINE = InnoDB;

PRODUKT table:

CREATE TABLE Produkt (
  ProduktID          INT NOT NULL,
  ProduktBeskrivelse VARCHAR(100) DEFAULT NULL,
  ProduktFarge       VARCHAR(20)  DEFAULT NULL,
  Enhetpris          INT          DEFAULT NULL,
  CONSTRAINT Produkt_pk PRIMARY KEY (ProduktID)
)
  ENGINE = InnoDB;

and ORDRELINJE table:

CREATE TABLE Ordrelinje (
  Ordre         INT NOT NULL,
  Produkt       INT NOT NULL,
  AntallBestilt INT DEFAULT NULL,
  CONSTRAINT Ordrelinje_pk PRIMARY KEY (Ordre, Produkt),
  CONSTRAINT Ordrelinje_fk FOREIGN KEY (Ordre) REFERENCES Ordre (OrdreID),
  CONSTRAINT Ordrelinje_fk1 FOREIGN KEY (Produkt) REFERENCES Produkt (ProduktID)
)
  ENGINE = InnoDB;

so when I try to insert values into ORDRELINJE table i get:

Error Code: 1452. Cannot add or update a child row: a foreign key constraint fails (srdjank.Ordrelinje, CONSTRAINT Ordrelinje_fk FOREIGN KEY (Ordre) REFERENCES Ordre (OrdreID))

I've seen the other posts on this topic, but no luck. Am I overseeing something or any idea what to do?

Answer 1

This error generally occurs because we have some values in the referencing field of the child table, which do not exist in the referenced/candidate field of the parent table.

Sometimes, we may get this error when we are applying Foreign Key constraints to existing table(s), having data in them already. Some of the other answers are suggesting to delete the data completely from child table, and then apply the constraint. However, this is not an option when we already have working/production data in the child table. In most scenarios, we will need to update the data in the child table (instead of deleting them).

Now, we can utilize Left Join to find all those rows in the child table, which does not have matching values in the parent table. Following query (missing from other answers), would be helpful to fetch those non-matching rows:

SELECT child_table.* 
FROM child_table 
LEFT JOIN parent_table 
  ON parent_table.referenced_column = child_table.referencing_column 
WHERE parent_table.referenced_column IS NULL

Now, you can generally do one (or more) of the following steps to fix the data.

1. Based on your "business logic", you will need to update/match these unmatching value(s), with the existing values in the parent table. You may sometimes need to set them null as well.
2. Delete these rows having unmatching values.
3. Add new rows in your parent table, corresponding to the unmatching values in the child table.

Once the data is fixed, we can apply the Foreign key constraint using ALTER TABLE syntax.

Answer 2

you should insert at least one raw in each tables (the ones you want the foreign keys pointing at) then you can insert or update the values of the foreign keys

Answer 3

Taken from Using FOREIGN KEY Constraints

Foreign key relationships involve a parent table that holds the central data values, and a child table with identical values pointing back to its parent. The FOREIGN KEY clause is specified in the child table.

It will reject any INSERT or UPDATE operation that attempts to create a foreign key value in a child table if there is no a matching candidate key value in the parent table.

So your error Error Code: 1452. Cannot add or update a child row: a foreign key constraint fails essentially means that, you are trying to add a row to your Ordrelinje table for which no matching row (OrderID) is present in Ordre table.

You must first insert the row to your Ordre table.

Answer 4

You are getting this constraint check because ordre table does not have reference order id provided in insert command.

To insert value in ordrelinje, you first have to enter value in ordre table and use same ordreID in orderlinje table.

Or you can remove not null constraint and insert a NULL value in it.

Answer 5

you should add data from REFERENCES KEY from PRIMARY TABLE to FOREIGN KEY in CHILD TABLE it means do not add random data to foreign key just use data from primary key

description of data in foreign key

Answer 6

You must delete data in the child table which does not have any corresponding foreign key value to the parent table primary key .Or delete all data from the child table then insert new data having the same foreign key value as the primary key in the parent table . That should work