Been a long while since I last needed to have Foreign Key in my Database.
Much of my applications are not so complex that I don't bother employ a Foreign Key.
Now that I have to, it took me about three whole hours figuring out the problem.
I cannot create Foreign Key with HeidiSQL!
I've been using HeidiSQL for over ten years now. It's only now that I faced problem with this MySQL GUI.
My latest Wamp Server uses MariaDB.
Thinking it could be MariaDB having a problem and not HeidiSQL, I tried using MySQL instead.
Still, with MySQL, I could not successfully create Foreign Key! And I've been pulling my hairs off!
Somehow, this problem has been discussed over at HeidiSQL forums a year ago. Even the author of HeidiSQL couldn't figure out why because the problem isn't happening on his side.
Luckily, a user named, Patsy, figured out why.
For some reason, my Wamp Server used MyISAM as default Table Engine instead of the more common, InnoDB.
So, in the end, it wasn't a bug in HeidiSQL. Neither a bug in MariaDB nor MySQL.
It was a compatibility problem with MyISAM not being able to support Foreign Key
Hope this blog post will save you hours of hair pulling.
Happy hacking!
~creek23
