Unsigned integers for MySQL
Reported by Rob Anderton | June 2nd, 2008 @ 03:20 PM
This was originally discussed but not resolved by others on the old Rails trac:
http://dev.rubyonrails.org/ticke...
I've attached a patch (with tests) that does the following:
- changes the primary key data type for the MySQL adapter to be "int(11) unsigned"
- changes the references (aka belongs_to) 'sexy' migration methods to generate unsigned foreign key fields by default when using MySQL (other adapters remain unchanged)
- adds an :unsigned option (defaults to false) to table creation and modification migrations, so for example you can now do things like this:
t.integer :category_id, :null => true, :unsigned => true
change_column :suppliers, :category_id, :integer, :unsigned => false
- updates the SchemaDumper to understand unsigned integer fields
The unsigned option will be silently ignored by all but the MySQL adaptor. I've tested with MySQL 5.1 and SQLite 3.
Comments and changes to this ticket
-
Pratik June 5th, 2008 @ 10:34 PM
- → State changed from “new” to “incomplete”
- → Assigned user changed from “” to “Pratik”
Not a good idea to create unsigned primary keys by default. However, Rails should allow people to do it nevertheless. I think the format could be something like :
create_table(:categories_suppliers, :id => :unsigned) do |t| .... end -
Rob Anderton June 9th, 2008 @ 09:15 PM
Updated patch attached: this doesn't touch the primary keys at all, it just adds an :unsigned option to migrations.
I have some other, non-MySQL specific, ideas for primary key options, and will submit these in a separate patch (which will also include the ability for specifying an unsigned PK in MySQL) when I've had chance to work on them.
-
Jason L Perry September 23rd, 2008 @ 03:58 PM
- → Tag changed from “” to “activerecord migrations patch”
@pratik: Why is it not a good idea to create unsigned primary keys by default? I've read over the mailing list thread related to this ticket (http://www.ruby-forum.com/topic/..., is your concern just regarding backward compatibility?
That said, I'd really like to be able to use :unsigned => true in migrations, regardless of any changes to the primary keys.
-
Rob Anderton September 30th, 2008 @ 11:12 AM
My understanding from the discussions was that changing the default would break backwards compatibility and that even though, as I pointed out, changes to the behaviour of the :limit option on numeric columns did the same thing, it wasn't acceptable for this patch.
I'm still intending to either release a more configurable patch (there's a bit more I'd like to do with primary keys) or a plugin. Hopefully I'll get chance over the next few weeks as it's been on my todo list for too long now :)
In the meantime I've uploaded the monkey-patch edition, which I've been using successfully on recent projects, to my blog
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