1782
MySQLERRORNotableDDLHIGH confidence

INPLACE ALTER not supported when renaming a column with foreign key

Production Risk

Low — DDL rejected.

What this means

Renaming a column that is part of a foreign key definition is not supported with ALGORITHM=INPLACE.

Why it happens
  1. 1CHANGE COLUMN or RENAME COLUMN used on an FK column with ALGORITHM=INPLACE.
How to reproduce
trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
ALTER TABLE orders ALGORITHM=INPLACE, RENAME COLUMN customer_id TO cust_id; -- col is FK

expected output

ERROR 1782 (0A000): ALGORITHM=INPLACE is not supported. Reason: Columns participating in a foreign key cannot be renamed inplace.

Fix

Use ALGORITHM=COPY when renaming FK columns

Use ALGORITHM=COPY when renaming FK columns
ALTER TABLE orders ALGORITHM=COPY, RENAME COLUMN customer_id TO cust_id;

Why this works

COPY rebuild updates all FK metadata correctly during the rename.

What not to do

Sources
Official documentation ↗

MySQL 8.0 — 1782 ER_ALTER_OPERATION_NOT_SUPPORTED_REASON_FK_RENAME

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