Question

Creating a Foreign Key Constraint

Asked by: NigelRocks

Experts,

I have a table called "Agent" with a primary key of AgentID.  I want to create a foreign key in my "AgentClient" table using a script.  This is how I'm attempting to do it:

ALTER TABLE AgentClient
ADD CONSTRAINT fk_AgentID FOREIGN KEY(AgentID)REFERENCES Agent(AgentID)
GO

However I get this error:
The ALTER TABLE statement conflicted with the FOREIGN KEY constraint "fk_AgentID". The conflict occurred in database "CCS_Central", table "dbo.Agent", column 'AgentID'.

There is not constraint by that name on either table.  What could be the issue?

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Asked On
2009-10-19 at 10:30:17ID24824354
Tags

T-SQL

Topic

SQL Query Syntax

Participating Experts
1
Points
500
Comments
8

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Answers

 

by: jparulPosted on 2009-10-19 at 10:50:01ID: 25607353

Is it possible that fk_AgentID has been created as a constraint for some other table.

Depending on what version of SQL server you are using, you can use the following query to list all constraints in your DB:

select
o1.name as Referencing_Object_name
, c1.name as referencing_column_Name
, o2.name as Referenced_Object_name
, c2.name as Referenced_Column_Name
, s.name as Constraint_name
from sysforeignkeys fk
inner join sysobjects o1 on fk.fkeyid = o1.id
inner join sysobjects o2 on fk.rkeyid = o2.id
inner join syscolumns c1 on c1.id = o1.id and c1.colid = fk.fkey
inner join syscolumns c2 on c2.id = o2.id and c2.colid = fk.rkey
inner join sysobjects s on fk.constid = s.id

 

by: NigelRocksPosted on 2009-10-19 at 10:58:13ID: 25607432

Actually, this was all I had to use to get all the constraints in my database:


SELECT *
FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS

The constraint its complaining about doesn't exist.

 

by: jparulPosted on 2009-10-19 at 11:03:21ID: 25607488

Okay, it looks like this error means that as a result of creating this constraint, some of the records will be orphaned out. Means they do not have a corresponding entry in the primary key table. So you may want to veruify the data in your tables and then create the constraint.

 

by: NigelRocksPosted on 2009-10-19 at 11:06:31ID: 25607528

There are no values in AgentClient that are NOT in Agent.  Since Agent is the parent table, it shouldn't be a problem that there are values in it that are not in AgentClient, correct?

 

by: jparulPosted on 2009-10-19 at 11:20:55ID: 25607661

You are right  "it shouldn't be a problem that there are values in it that are not in AgentClient"

However, as per my knowledge, foreign keys not existing in the primary key table is the reason for this error. Did you also check for NULL/blank values.

This query can help you confirm:

select A.*
from foreigntable A
left outer join primarytable B on A.foreignkey = B.primarykey
where B.primarykey is null

 

by: NigelRocksPosted on 2009-10-19 at 11:26:42ID: 25607715

I'm getting nothing returned on that query.

 

by: jparulPosted on 2009-10-19 at 11:32:22ID: 25607750

 

by: NigelRocksPosted on 2009-10-19 at 12:04:33ID: 31643008

My bad.  The situation here is a little crazy and I was looking at a same-named table in the wrong database.

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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