Relation rules in MySql

Question

How do I define relation rules in mysql?

Table1: bookId authorId bookName

Table2: authorId authorName

This is how I would like the Mysql server to behave: When I try to insert a row into table1 with a authorId that doesn't exsist in table2, mysql would produce a error.

Answer 1

First result in:

http://www.google.com/search?q=mysql+foreign+keys&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=com.ubuntu:en-US:unofficial&client=firefox-a

Answer 2

You have to define authorid as a foreign key. You need to do something like this:

Alter Table Table1 Add Foreign Key (authorid) References Table2 (authorid);

Make sure your tables are innodb because it won't work on myisam tables. You can find the documentation here.