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The CHECK Constraint enables a condition to check the value being entered into a record. If the condition evaluates to false, the record violates the constraint and isn.t entered into the table.
For example, the following SQL creates a new table called CUSTOMERS and adds five columns. Here we add a CHECK with AGE column, so that you can not have any CUSTOMER below 18 years:
CREATE TABLE CUSTOMERS( ID INT NOT NULL, NAME VARCHAR (20) NOT NULL, AGE INT NOT NULL CHECK (AGE >= 18), ADDRESS CHAR (25) , SALARY DECIMAL (18, 2), PRIMARY KEY (ID) ); |
If CUSTOMERS table has already been created, then to add a CHECK constraint to AGE column, you would write a statement similar to the following:
ALTER TABLE CUSTOMERS MODIFY AGE INT NOT NULL CHECK (AGE >= 18 ); |
You can also use following syntax, which supports naming the constraint and multiple columns as well:
ALTER TABLE CUSTOMERS ADD CONSTRAINT myCheckConstraint CHECK(AGE >= 18); |
To drop a CHECK constraint, use the following SQL. This syntax does not work with MySQL:
ALTER TABLE CUSTOMERS DROP CONSTRAINT myCheckConstraint; |
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