Martijn Tonies wrote:

> With the standard MySQL MyISAM tables, whenever you make a
> metadata change, MySQL makes a copy of the table, dumps the data
> and renames the table. Why? Because it are simple files, not a database.

Interesting piece of information Martijn - so they do follow best
practice ( Which S.Karthick is always to create a copy with the new
metadata and pump in the old data - but you always have both available
rather than just dumping the backup ;) )

> When RI is in place, doing the above becomes much harder -- you
> cannot just delete a table and replace it with a new copy and rename
> it. When doing that, the RI is broken, pointing to a void area (where
> your original table used to be).

Martijn do you know who MySQL is handling this in some of the newer
versions? I thought that new were starting to block metadata changes in
this case?

--
Lester Caine
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L.S.Caine Electronic Services