Cannot delete or update a parent row: a foreign key constraint fails

Question

When doing:

DELETE FROM `jobs` WHERE `job_id` =1 LIMIT 1

It errors:

#1451 - Cannot delete or update a parent row: a foreign key constraint fails (paymesomething.advertisers, CONSTRAINT advertisers_ibfk_1 FOREIGN KEY (advertiser_id) REFERENCES jobs (advertiser_id))

Here are my tables:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `advertisers` (
  `advertiser_id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `name` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `password` char(32) NOT NULL,
  `email` varchar(128) NOT NULL,
  `address` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `phone` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `fax` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `session_token` char(30) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`advertiser_id`),
  UNIQUE KEY `email` (`email`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=2 ;


INSERT INTO `advertisers` (`advertiser_id`, `name`, `password`, `email`, `address`, `phone`, `fax`, `session_token`) VALUES
(1, 'TEST COMPANY', '', '', '', '', '', '');

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `jobs` (
  `job_id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `advertiser_id` int(11) unsigned NOT NULL,
  `name` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `shortdesc` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `longdesc` text NOT NULL,
  `address` varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  `time_added` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `active` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
  `moderated` tinyint(1) NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`job_id`),
  KEY `advertiser_id` (`advertiser_id`,`active`,`moderated`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB  DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8 AUTO_INCREMENT=2 ;


INSERT INTO `jobs` (`job_id`, `advertiser_id`, `name`, `shortdesc`, `longdesc`, `address`, `active`, `moderated`) VALUES
(1, 1, 'TEST', 'TESTTEST', 'TESTTESTES', '', 0, 0);

ALTER TABLE `advertisers`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `advertisers_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`advertiser_id`) REFERENCES `jobs` (`advertiser_id`);

Answer 1

Under your current (possibly flawed) design, you must delete the row out of the advertisers table before you can delete the row in the jobs table that it references.

Alternatively, you could set up your foreign key such that a delete in the parent table causes rows in child tables to be delete automatically. This is called a cascading delete. It looks something like this:

ALTER TABLE `advertisers`
ADD CONSTRAINT `advertisers_ibfk_1`
FOREIGN KEY (`advertiser_id`) REFERENCES `jobs` (`advertiser_id`)
ON DELETE CASCADE;

Having said that, as others have already pointed out, your foreign key feels like it should go the other way around since the advertisers table really contains the primary key and the jobs table contains the foreign key. I would rewrite it like this:

ALTER TABLE `jobs`
ADD FOREIGN KEY (`advertiser_id`) REFERENCES `advertisers` (`advertiser_id`);

And the cascading delete won't be necessary.

Answer 2

If there are more than one job having the same advertiser_id, then your foreign key should be:

ALTER TABLE `jobs`
ADD CONSTRAINT `advertisers_ibfk_1` 
FOREIGN KEY (`advertiser_id`) 
REFERENCES `advertisers` (`advertiser_id`);

Otherwise (if its the other way round in your case), if you want the rows in advertiser to be automatically deleted if the row in job is deleted add the 'ON DELETE CASCADE' option to your foreign key

ALTER TABLE `advertisers`
ADD CONSTRAINT `advertisers_ibfk_1` 
FOREIGN KEY (`advertiser_id`) 
REFERENCES `jobs` (`advertiser_id`);
ON DELETE CASCASE

Check out Foreign Key constraints

Answer 3

As is, you must delete the row out of the advertisers table before you can delete the row in the jobs table that references it. This:

ALTER TABLE `advertisers`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `advertisers_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`advertiser_id`) 
      REFERENCES `jobs` (`advertiser_id`);

...is actually the opposite to what it should be. As it is, it means that you'd have to have a record in the jobs table before the advertisers. So you need to use:

ALTER TABLE `jobs`
  ADD CONSTRAINT `advertisers_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`advertiser_id`) 
      REFERENCES `advertisers` (`advertiser_id`);

Once you correct the foreign key relationship, your delete statement will work.

Answer 4

I think that your foreign key is backwards. Try:

ALTER TABLE 'jobs'
ADD CONSTRAINT `advertisers_ibfk_1` FOREIGN KEY (`advertiser_id`) REFERENCES `advertisers` (`advertiser_id`)

Answer 5

Maybe you should try ON DELETE CASCADE