Table constraints are constraints that are applied to the table as a whole.
The PRIMARY KEY
constraint specifies that a column or columns of a table
can contain only unique (non-duplicate), non-null values.
Using columns of type object
, geo_point
, geo_shape
or array
as
PRIMARY KEY
is not supported.
To use a whole object
as PRIMARY KEY
each column within the object
can be declared as PRIMARY KEY
instead.
Adding a PRIMARY KEY
column is only possible if the table is empty.
Warning
The verification if the table is empty and the schema update isn’t atomic.
That means that it could be possible to add a primary key column to a table
that isn’t empty.
If that is the case queries that contain the primary key columns in the
WHERE
clause will not behave as expected.
The INDEX
constraint specifies a specific index method on one or more
columns.
It is possible to define more than one index per table, whether as a column
constraint or a table constraint.
The CHECK
constraint specifies that the values of certain columns must
satisfy a boolean expression on INSERT
and
UPDATE
.
Syntax:
[CONSTRAINT check_name>] CHECK (boolean_expression)
If CONSTAINT check_name
is omitted, CrateDB generates a unique name
automatically. This name is visible in
table_constraints. This name can be used with
DROP CONSTRAINT to remove the constraint.
The CONSTRAINT
definition can either be inline with a column, like this:
cr> CREATE TABLE metrics1 (
... weight REAL CONSTRAINT weight_is_positive CHECK (weight >= 0),
... );
CREATE OK, 1 row affected (... sec)
Or, also inline, but without explicit name:
cr> CREATE TABLE metrics2 (
... weight REAL CHECK (weight >= 0),
... );
CREATE OK, 1 row affected (... sec)
Or, on a table level with explicit name:
cr> CREATE TABLE metrics3 (
... weight REAL,
... CONSTRAINT weight_is_positive CHECK (weight >= 0),
... );
CREATE OK, 1 row affected (... sec)
Or without name:
cr> CREATE TABLE metrics4 (
... weight REAL,
... CHECK (weight >= 0),
... );
CREATE OK, 1 row affected (... sec)
Multiple columns can be referenced:
cr> CREATE TABLE metrics5 (
... weight REAL,
... qty INTEGER,
... CHECK (weight * qty != 1918),
... );
CREATE OK, 1 row affected (... sec)
cr> CREATE TABLE metrics6 (
... weight REAL,
... qty INTEGER CHECK (qty * weight != 1918)
... );
CREATE OK, 1 row affected (... sec)
Warning
The CHECK
constraint conditions must be deterministic, always yielding
the same result for the same input.
A way to break this is to reference a user-defined function in a CHECK
expression, and then change the
behavior of that function. Some existing rows in the table could now violate
the CHECK
constraint. That would cause a subsequent database dump and
reload to fail.