How do I see all foreign keys to a table or column?

Question

In MySQL, how do I get a list of all foreign key constraints pointing to a particular table? a particular column? This is the same thing as this Oracle question, but for MyS

Answer 1

Using REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME does not always work and can be a NULL value. The following query can work instead:

select * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE where TABLE_NAME = '<table>';

Answer 2

A quick way to list your FKs (Foreign Key references) using the

KEY_COLUMN_USAGE view:

SELECT CONCAT( table_name, '.',
column_name, ' -> ',
referenced_table_name, '.',
referenced_column_name ) AS list_of_fks
FROM information_schema.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE
WHERE REFERENCED_TABLE_SCHEMA = (your schema name here)
AND REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME is not null
ORDER BY TABLE_NAME, COLUMN_NAME;

This query does assume that the constraints and all referenced and referencing tables are in the same schema.

Add your own comment.

Source: the official mysql manual.

Answer 3

The solution I came up with is fragile; it relies on django's naming convention for foreign keys.

USE information_schema;
tee mysql_output
SELECT * FROM TABLE_CONSTRAINTS WHERE CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'FOREIGN KEY' AND TABLE_SCHEMA = 'database_name';
notee

Then, in the shell,

grep 'refs_tablename_id' mysql_output

Answer 4

For a Table:

SELECT 
  TABLE_NAME,COLUMN_NAME,CONSTRAINT_NAME, REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME,REFERENCED_COLUMN_NAME
FROM
  INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE
WHERE
  REFERENCED_TABLE_SCHEMA = '<database>' AND
  REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME = '<table>';

For a Column:

SELECT 
  TABLE_NAME,COLUMN_NAME,CONSTRAINT_NAME, REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME,REFERENCED_COLUMN_NAME
FROM
  INFORMATION_SCHEMA.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE
WHERE
  REFERENCED_TABLE_SCHEMA = '<database>' AND
  REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME = '<table>' AND
  REFERENCED_COLUMN_NAME = '<column>';

Basically, we changed REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME with REFERENCED_COLUMN_NAME in the where clause.

Answer 5

EDIT: As pointed out in the comments, this is not the correct answer to the OPs question, but it is useful to know this command. This question showed up in Google for what I was looking for, and figured I'd leave this answer for the others to find.

SHOW CREATE TABLE `<yourtable>`;

I found this answer here: MySQL : show constraints on tables command

I needed this way because I wanted to see how the FK functioned, rather than just see if it existed or not.

Answer 6

If you also want to get the name of the foreign key column:

SELECT i.TABLE_SCHEMA, i.TABLE_NAME, 
       i.CONSTRAINT_TYPE, i.CONSTRAINT_NAME, 
       k.COLUMN_NAME, k.REFERENCED_TABLE_NAME, k.REFERENCED_COLUMN_NAME 
  FROM information_schema.TABLE_CONSTRAINTS i 
  LEFT JOIN information_schema.KEY_COLUMN_USAGE k 
       ON i.CONSTRAINT_NAME = k.CONSTRAINT_NAME 
 WHERE i.TABLE_SCHEMA = '<TABLE_NAME>' AND i.CONSTRAINT_TYPE = 'FOREIGN KEY' 
 ORDER BY i.TABLE_NAME;