By default, MySQL is forgiving of illegal or improper data values and coerces them to legal values for data entry. However, you can change the server SQL mode to select more traditional treatment of bad values such that the server rejects them and aborts the statement in which they occur. See Section 5.1.8, “Server SQL Modes”.
This section describes the default (forgiving) behavior of MySQL, as well as the strict SQL mode and how it differs.
If you are not using strict mode, then whenever you insert an
“incorrect” value into a column, such as a
NULL
into a NOT NULL
column or a too-large numeric value into a numeric column,
MySQL sets the column to the “best possible
value” instead of producing an error: The following
rules describe in more detail how this works:
If you try to store an out of range value into a numeric column, MySQL Server instead stores zero, the smallest possible value, or the largest possible value, whichever is closest to the invalid value.
For strings, MySQL stores either the empty string or as much of the string as can be stored in the column.
If you try to store a string that doesn't start with a number into a numeric column, MySQL Server stores 0.
Invalid values for ENUM
and
SET
columns are handled as
described in Section 1.8.6.3, “ENUM
and
SET
Constraints”.
MySQL allows you to store certain incorrect date values
into DATE
and
DATETIME
columns (such as
'2000-02-31'
or
'2000-02-00'
). The idea is that it is
not the job of the SQL server to validate dates. If MySQL
can store a date value and retrieve exactly the same
value, MySQL stores it as given. If the date is totally
wrong (outside the server's ability to store it), the
special “zero” date value
'0000-00-00'
is stored in the column
instead.
If you try to store NULL
into a column
that doesn't take NULL
values, an error
occurs for single-row
INSERT
statements. For
multiple-row INSERT
statements or for
INSERT INTO
... SELECT
statements, MySQL Server stores the
implicit default value for the column data type. In
general, this is 0
for numeric types,
the empty string (''
) for string types,
and the “zero” value for date and time types.
Implicit default values are discussed in
Section 10.1.4, “Data Type Default Values”.
If an INSERT
statement
specifies no value for a column, MySQL inserts its default
value if the column definition includes an explicit
DEFAULT
clause. If the definition has
no such DEFAULT
clause, MySQL inserts
the implicit default value for the column data type.
The reason for using the preceding rules in nonstrict mode is that we can't check these conditions until the statement has begun executing. We can't just roll back if we encounter a problem after updating a few rows, because the storage engine may not support rollback. The option of terminating the statement is not that good; in this case, the update would be “half done,” which is probably the worst possible scenario. In this case, it is better to “do the best you can” and then continue as if nothing happened.
In MySQL 5.0.2 and up, you can select stricter treatment of
input values by using the
STRICT_TRANS_TABLES
or
STRICT_ALL_TABLES
SQL modes:
SET sql_mode = 'STRICT_TRANS_TABLES'; SET sql_mode = 'STRICT_ALL_TABLES';
STRICT_TRANS_TABLES
enables
strict mode for transactional storage engines, and also to
some extent for nontransactional engines. It works like this:
For transactional storage engines, bad data values occurring anywhere in a statement cause the statement to abort and roll back.
For nontransactional storage engines, a statement aborts
if the error occurs in the first row to be inserted or
updated. (When the error occurs in the first row, the
statement can be aborted to leave the table unchanged,
just as for a transactional table.) Errors in rows after
the first do not abort the statement, because the table
has already been changed by the first row. Instead, bad
data values are adjusted and result in warnings rather
than errors. In other words, with
STRICT_TRANS_TABLES
, a
wrong value causes MySQL to roll back all updates done so
far, if that can be done without changing the table. But
once the table has been changed, further errors result in
adjustments and warnings.
For even stricter checking, enable
STRICT_ALL_TABLES
. This is
the same as
STRICT_TRANS_TABLES
except
that for nontransactional storage engines, errors abort the
statement even for bad data in rows following the first row.
This means that if an error occurs partway through a
multiple-row insert or update for a nontransactional table, a
partial update results. Earlier rows are inserted or updated,
but those from the point of the error on are not. To avoid
this for nontransactional tables, either use single-row
statements or else use
STRICT_TRANS_TABLES
if
conversion warnings rather than errors are acceptable. To
avoid problems in the first place, do not use MySQL to check
column content. It is safest (and often faster) to let the
application ensure that it passes only legal values to the
database.
With either of the strict mode options, you can cause errors
to be treated as warnings by using
INSERT
IGNORE
or UPDATE IGNORE
rather
than INSERT
or
UPDATE
without
IGNORE
.
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