MySQL Removing Some Foreign keys

Question

I have a table whose primary key is used in several other tables and has several foreign keys to other tables.

CREATE TABLE location (
   locationID INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY
   ...
) ENGINE = InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE assignment (
   assignmentID INT NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
   locationID INT NOT NULL,
   FOREIGN KEY locationIDX (locationID) REFERENCES location (locationID)
   ...
) ENGINE = InnoDB;

CREATE TABLE assignmentStuff (
   ...
   assignmentID INT NOT NULL,
   FOREIGN KEY assignmentIDX (assignmentID) REFERENCES assignment (assignmentID)
) ENGINE = InnoDB;

The problem is that when I'm trying to drop one of the foreign key columns (ie locationIDX) it gives me an error.

"ERROR 1025 (HY000): Error on rename"

How can I drop the column in the assignment table above without getting this error?

Answer 1

Try this:

alter table Documents drop
  FK__Documents__Custo__2A4B4B5E

Answer 2

As everyone said above, you can easily delete a FK. However, I just noticed that it can be necessary to drop the KEY itself at some point. If you have any error message to create another index like the last one, I mean with the same name, it would be useful dropping everything related to that index.

ALTER TABLE your_table_with_fk
  drop FOREIGN KEY name_of_your_fk_from_show_create_table_command_result,
  drop KEY the_same_name_as_above

Answer 3

step1: show create table vendor_locations;

step2: ALTER TABLE vendor_locations drop foreign key vendor_locations_ibfk_1;

it worked for me.