1059
MySQLERRORCommonDDLHIGH confidence
Identifier name is too long (max 64 chars)
Production Risk
Low — DDL fails; no data loss.
What this means
ER_TOO_LONG_IDENT (1059, SQLSTATE 42000) is raised when a database, table, column, index, or other identifier exceeds MySQL's maximum length of 64 characters.
Why it happens
- 1Auto-generated identifier name (e.g., from an ORM) exceeds 64 characters
- 2Manually chosen name is too descriptive
- 3Concatenated table/column names produce a long constraint name
How to reproduce
trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
CREATE TABLE this_is_a_very_long_table_name_that_exceeds_the_mysql_maximum_limit (id INT);
expected output
ERROR 1059 (42000): Identifier name 'this_is_a_very_long_table_name_that_exceeds_the_mysql_maximum_limit' is too long
Fix
Shorten the identifier to 64 characters or fewer
WHEN Always.
Shorten the identifier to 64 characters or fewer
-- Abbreviate the name: CREATE TABLE order_item_category_mappings (id INT);
Why this works
MySQL enforces a hard 64-character limit on all identifiers except aliases.
What not to do
✕ Try to increase the identifier length limit via configuration
The 64-character limit is a hard-coded constant in MySQL; it cannot be changed via configuration.
Sources
Official documentation ↗
MySQL 8.0 — 1059 ER_TOO_LONG_IDENT
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