Recently, I’ve been building a custom module to use on a customer’s site. When I tried to install it I got the following error message:
user warning: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘NOT NULL DEFAULT 1, PRIMARY KEY (uhid) ) /*!40100 DEFAULT CHARACTER SET UTF8 */’ at line 10 query: CREATE TABLE user_history ( `uhid` INT auto_increment DEFAULT NULL, `nid` INT unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, `uid` INT unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT 0, `chapter_status` VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”, `title` VARCHAR(32) NOT NULL DEFAULT ”, `type` VARCHAR(32) DEFAULT ”, `start_date` INT DEFAULT NULL, `end_date` INT DEFAULT NULL, `enabled` NOT NULL DEFAULT 1, PRIMARY KEY (mhid) ) /*!40100 DEFAULT CHARACTER SET UTF8 */ in /home/trunk/project/htdocs/includes/database.inc on line 529.
I immediately noticed the last line of the query: `enabled` NOT NULL DEFAULT 1
A datatype had not been assigned to the column I was trying to create.
Taking a look at my code I noticed the following:
function member_history_schema(){
$schema[‘user_history’] = array(
‘description’ => t(‘Stores user history data’),
‘fields’ => array(
‘uhid’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘serial’,
‘description’ => t(‘primary key’),
),
‘nid’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘int’,
‘unsigned’ => TRUE,
‘not null’ => TRUE,
‘default’ => 0,
‘description’ => t(“The {node}.nid of the user’s history”),
),
‘uid’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘int’,
‘unsigned’ => TRUE,
‘not null’ => TRUE,
‘default’ => 0,
‘description’ => t(“The {user}.uid of the {user}”),
),
‘status’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘varchar’,
‘length’ => 32,
‘not null’ => TRUE,
‘default’ => ”,
),
‘title’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘varchar’,
‘length’ => 32,
‘not null’ => TRUE,
‘default’ => ”,
),
‘type’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘varchar’,
‘length’ => 32,
‘not_null’ => TRUE,
‘default’ => ”,
),
‘start_date’ => array(
‘type’ =>’int’,
‘description’ => t(‘The start date the {user} status.’),
),
‘end_date’ => array(
‘type’ =>’int’,
‘description’ => t(‘The end date the {user} status.’),
),
‘enabled’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘tinyint’,
‘not null’ => TRUE,
‘default’ => 1,
),
),
‘primary key’ => array(‘uhid’)
);
return $schema;
}
I instantly realized my mistake, I was attempting to create a boolean field and chose to use tinyint as the datatype column. When I read the following drupal page http://drupal.org/node/159605 I misunderstood how it was saying to declare the type (I must not have been paying attention at all, because now it makes sense). I should have read this page http://api.drupal.org/api/group/schemaapi/6. Specifically, the part where they explain the ‘size’ parameter.
So instead of:
‘enabled’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘tinyint’,
‘not null’ => TRUE,
‘default’ => 1,
),
I should have done the following:
‘enabled’ => array(
‘type’ => ‘int’,
‘size’ => ‘tiny’,
‘not null’ => TRUE,
‘default’ => 1,
),
This certainly was a mistake on my part, but sometimes I find the Drupal documentation confusing.
Moral of the story: declare boolean fields as int with a size of tiny.