April 2012 Labs Release – Online DDL Improvements

• Create secondary indexes: CREATE INDEX name ON table (col_list) or ALTER TABLE table ADD INDEX name (col_list)

  Drop secondary indexes: DROP INDEX name ON table; or ALTER TABLE table DROP INDEX name

  Creating and dropping secondary indexes on InnoDB tables has avoided the table-copying behavior since the days of MySQL 5.1 with the InnoDB Plugin. Now, the table remains available for read and write operations while the index is being created or dropped. The CREATE INDEX or DROP INDEX statement only finishes after all transactions that are modifying the table are completed, so that the initial state of the index reflects the most recent contents of the table.

  Previously, modifying the table while an index was being created or dropped typically resulted in a deadlock that cancelled the insert, update, or delete statement on the table.

• Changing the auto-increment value for a column: ALTER TABLE table AUTO_INCREMENT=next_value;

  Especially in a distributed system using replication or sharding, you sometimes reset the auto-increment counter for a table to a specific value. The next row inserted into the table uses the specified value for its auto-increment column. You might also use this technique in a data warehousing environment where you periodically empty all the tables and reload them, and you can restart the auto-increment sequence from 1.

• Drop a foreign key constraint: ALTER TABLE tbl DROP FOREIGN KEY fk_name

  Currently, online DDL only includes the DROP operation for foreign keys, not ADD to create foreign keys.

  If you do not know the names of the foreign key constraints on a particular table, issue the following statement and find the constraint name in the CONSTRAINT clause for each foreign key:

  show create table table\G
  

  Or, query the information_schema.table_constraints table and use the constraint_name and constraint_type columns to identify the foreign key names.

  As a consequence of this enhancement, you can now also drop a foreign key and its associated index in a single statement, which previously required separate statements in a strict order:

  ALTER TABLE  table DROP FOREIGN KEY  constraint, DROP INDEX index;
  

• Rename a column: ALTER TABLE tbl CHANGE old_col_name new_col_name datatype

  When you keep the same data type and only change the column name, this operation can always be performed online. As part of this enhancement, you can now rename a column that is part of a foreign key constraint, which was not allowed before.

As your database schema evolves with new columns, data types, constraints, indexes, and so on, keep your CREATE TABLE statements up to date with the latest table definitions. Even with the performance improvements of online DDL, it is more efficient to create stable database structures at the beginning, rather than creating part of the schema and then issuing ALTER TABLE statements afterward.

The main exception to this guideline is for secondary indexes on tables with large numbers of rows. It is typically most efficient to create the table with all details specified except the secondary indexes, load the data, then create the secondary indexes.

Whatever sequence of CREATE TABLE, CREATE INDEX, ALTER TABLE, and similar statements went into putting a table together, you can capture the SQL needed to reconstruct the current form of the table by issuing the statement SHOW CREATE TABLE table\G (uppercase \G required for tidy formatting). This output shows clauses such as numeric precision, NOT NULL, and CHARACTER SET that are sometimes added behind the scenes, and you might otherwise leave out when cloning the table on a new system or setting up foreign key columns with identical type.

• By avoiding the disk I/O and CPU cycles to rebuild the table, you minimize the overall load on the database and maintain good performance and high throughput during the DDL operation.

• Because the DDL operation completes in less time, there is a shorter period when queries and DML operations on that table are blocked, making your application more responsive.

• Because less data is read into the buffer pool, you avoid purging frequently accessed data from the memory cache, which typically causes a temporary performance dip after a DDL operation.

• Because there is a shorter period when queries and DML operations queue up waiting for the DDL to finish, there is less locking and waiting for other resources all throughout the MySQL server. Reducing this type of overhead leads to greater scalability, even for operations not involving the table being altered.

• Changing the default value of a column (super-fast, does not affect the table data at all):

  Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.07 sec)

• Adding an index (takes time, but 0 rows affected shows that the table is not copied):

  Query OK, 0 rows affected (21.42 sec)

• Changing the data type of a column (takes substantial time and does require rebuilding all the rows of the table):

  Query OK, 1671168 rows affected (1 min 35.54 sec)

1. Clone the table structure.

2. Populate the cloned table with a tiny amount of data.

3. Run the DDL operation on the cloned table.

4. Check whether the “rows affected” value is zero or not. A non-zero value means the operation will require rebuilding the entire table, which might require special planning. For example, you might do the DDL operation during a period of scheduled downtime, or on each replication slave server one at a time.

Example 1. Schema Setup Code for Online DDL Experiments

Here is the code that sets up the initial tables used in these demonstrations:

/*
Setup code for the online DDL demonstration:
- Set up some config variables.
- Create 2 tables that are clones of one of the INFORMATION_SCHEMA tables
  that always has some data. The "small" table has a couple of thousand rows.
  For the "big" table, keep doubling the data until it reaches over a million rows.
- Set up a primary key for the sample tables, since we are demonstrating InnoDB aspects.
*/ 

set autocommit = 0;
set foreign_key_checks = 1;
set global innodb_file_per_table = 1;
set old_alter_table=0;
prompt mysql: 

use test;

\! echo "Setting up 'small' table:"
drop table if exists small_table;
create table small_table as select * from information_schema.columns;
alter table small_table add id int unsigned not null primary key auto_increment;
select count(id) from small_table;

\! echo "Setting up 'big' table:"
drop table if exists big_table;
create table big_table as select * from information_schema.columns;
show create table big_table\G

insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
insert into big_table select * from big_table;
commit;

alter table big_table add id int unsigned not null primary key auto_increment;
select count(id) from big_table;

Running this code gives this output, condensed for brevity and with the most important points bolded:

Setting up 'small' table:

Query OK, 1678 rows affected (0.13 sec)
Query OK, 1678 rows affected (0.07 sec)

+-----------+
| count(id) |
+-----------+
|      1678 |
+-----------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Setting up 'big' table:

Query OK, 1678 rows affected (0.17 sec)

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: big_table
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `big_table` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `COLUMN_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `ORDINAL_POSITION` bigint(21) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `COLUMN_DEFAULT` longtext CHARACTER SET utf8,
  `IS_NULLABLE` varchar(3) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `DATA_TYPE` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHARACTER_OCTET_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `NUMERIC_PRECISION` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `NUMERIC_SCALE` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `DATETIME_PRECISION` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHARACTER_SET_NAME` varchar(32) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `COLLATION_NAME` varchar(32) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `COLUMN_TYPE` longtext CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `COLUMN_KEY` varchar(3) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `EXTRA` varchar(30) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `PRIVILEGES` varchar(80) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `COLUMN_COMMENT` varchar(1024) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT ''
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Query OK, 1678 rows affected (0.09 sec)
Query OK, 3356 rows affected (0.07 sec)
Query OK, 6712 rows affected (0.17 sec)
Query OK, 13424 rows affected (0.44 sec)
Query OK, 26848 rows affected (0.63 sec)
Query OK, 53696 rows affected (1.72 sec)
Query OK, 107392 rows affected (3.02 sec)
Query OK, 214784 rows affected (6.28 sec)
Query OK, 429568 rows affected (13.25 sec)
Query OK, 859136 rows affected (28.16 sec)
Query OK, 1718272 rows affected (1 min 9.22 sec)

+-----------+
| count(id) |
+-----------+
|   1718272 |
+-----------+
1 row in set (1.75 sec)

Example 2. Speed and Efficiency of CREATE INDEX and DROP INDEX

Here is a sequence of statements demonstrating the relative speed of CREATE INDEX and DROP INDEX statements. For a small table, the elapsed time is less than a second whether we use the fast or slow technique, so we look at the “rows affected” output to verify which operations can avoid the table rebuild. For a large table, the difference in efficiency is obvious because skipping the table rebuild saves substantial time.

\! clear

-- Make sure we're using the new-style fast DDL.
-- Outside of benchmarking and testing, you would
-- never enable the old_alter_table setting.
set old_alter_table=0;

\! echo "=== Create and drop index (small table, new/fast technique) ==="
\! echo
\! echo "Data size (kilobytes) before index created: "
\! du -k data/test/small_table.ibd
create index i_dtyp_small on small_table (data_type);
\! echo "Data size after index created: "
\! du -k data/test/small_table.ibd
drop index i_dtyp_small on small_table;

-- Revert to the older slower DDL for comparison.
set old_alter_table=1;

\! echo "=== Create and drop index (small table, old/slow technique) ==="
\! echo
\! echo "Data size (kilobytes) before index created: "
\! du -k data/test/small_table.ibd
create index i_dtyp_small on small_table (data_type);
\! echo "Data size after index created: "
\! du -k data/test/small_table.ibd
drop index i_dtyp_small on small_table;

-- In the above example, we examined the "rows affected" number,
-- ideally looking for a zero figure. Let's try again with a larger
-- sample size, where we'll see that the actual time taken can
-- vary significantly.

-- Back to the new/fast behavior:
set old_alter_table=0;

\! echo "=== Create and drop index (big table, new/fast technique) ==="
\! echo
\! echo "Data size (kilobytes) before index created: "
\! du -k data/test/big_table.ibd
create index i_dtyp_big on big_table (data_type);
\! echo "Data size after index created: "
\! du -k data/test/big_table.ibd
drop index i_dtyp_big on big_table;

-- Let's see that again, in slow motion:
set old_alter_table=1;

\! echo "=== Create and drop index (big table, old/slow technique) ==="
\! echo
\! echo "Data size (kilobytes) before index created: "
\! du -k data/test/big_table.ibd
create index i_dtyp_big on big_table (data_type);
\! echo "Data size after index created: "
\! du -k data/test/big_table.ibd
drop index i_dtyp_big on big_table;

Running this code gives this output, condensed for brevity and with the most important points bolded:

=== Create and drop index (small table, new/fast technique) ===

Data size (kilobytes) before index created:
384	data/test/small_table.ibd
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.04 sec)

Data size after index created:
432	data/test/small_table.ibd
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

=== Create and drop index (small table, old/slow technique) ===

Data size (kilobytes) before index created:
432	data/test/small_table.ibd
Query OK, 1678 rows affected (0.12 sec)

Data size after index created:
448	data/test/small_table.ibd
Query OK, 1678 rows affected (0.10 sec)

=== Create and drop index (big table, new/fast technique) ===

Data size (kilobytes) before index created:
315392	data/test/big_table.ibd
Query OK, 0 rows affected (33.32 sec)

Data size after index created:
335872	data/test/big_table.ibd
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

=== Create and drop index (big table, old/slow technique) ===

Data size (kilobytes) before index created:
335872	data/test/big_table.ibd
Query OK, 1718272 rows affected (1 min 5.01 sec)

Data size after index created:
348160	data/test/big_table.ibd
Query OK, 1718272 rows affected (46.59 sec)

Example 3. Concurrent DML During CREATE INDEX and DROP INDEX

Here are some snippets of code that I ran in separate mysql sessions connected to the same database, to illustrate DML statements (insert, update, or delete) running at the same time as CREATE INDEX and DROP INDEX.

CREATE INDEX statement (in session 1):

/*
CREATE INDEX statement to run against a table while
insert/update/delete statements are modifying the
column being indexed.
*/

-- We'll run this script in one session, while simultaneously creating and dropping
-- an index on test/big_table.table_name in another session.

use test;
create index i_concurrent on big_table(table_name);

DROP INDEX statement (in session 1):

/*
DROP INDEX statement to run against a table while
insert/update/delete statements are modifying the
column being indexed.
*/

-- We'll run this script in one session, while simultaneously creating and dropping
-- an index on test/big_table.table_name in another session.

use test;
drop index i_concurrent on big_table;

DML statements (in session 2). I ran these DELETE statements while the CREATE INDEX was running.
Because DROP INDEX in this case takes less than a second, I started the DELETE first and then ran the DROP INDEX while the DML was in progress. In each case, the DML statement waited until the transaction with the DELETE was finished. (That’s why the timing numbers are higher than in the other examples. I waited for a while before issuing the ROLLBACK statement at the mysql command line.)

/*
Some queries and insert/update/delete statements to run against a table
while an index is being created or dropped. Previously, these operations
would have stalled during the index create/drop period and possibly
timed out or deadlocked.
*/

-- We'll run this script in one session, while simultaneously creating and dropping
-- an index on test/big_table.table_name in another session.

-- In our test instance, that column has about 1.7M rows, with 136 different values.

set autocommit = 0;
use test;

select distinct character_set_name from big_table where table_name = 'FILES';
delete from big_table where table_name = 'FILES';
select distinct character_set_name from big_table where table_name = 'FILES';

-- I'll issue the final rollback interactively, not via script,
-- the better to control the timing.
-- rollback;

Running this code gives this output, condensed for brevity and with the most important points bolded:

mysql: source concurrent_ddl_create.sql
Database changed
Query OK, 0 rows affected (1 min 25.15 sec)
Records: 0  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql: source concurrent_ddl_drop.sql
Database changed
Query OK, 0 rows affected (24.98 sec)
Records: 0  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

mysql: source concurrent_dml.sql
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Database changed
+--------------------+
| character_set_name |
+--------------------+
| NULL               |
| utf8               |
+--------------------+
2 rows in set (0.32 sec)

Query OK, 38912 rows affected (1.84 sec)

Empty set (0.01 sec)

mysql: rollback;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (1.05 sec)

Example 4. Renaming a Column

Here is a demonstration of using ALTER TABLE to rename a column. We use the new, fast DDL mechanism to change the name, then the old, slow DDL mechanism (with old_alter_table=1) to restore the original column name.

/*
Run through a sequence of 'rename column' statements.
Because this operation involves only metadata, not table data,
it is fast for big and small tables, with new or old DDL mechanisms.
*/

\! clear

\! echo "Rename column (fast technique, small table):"
set old_alter_table=0;
alter table small_table change `IS_NULLABLE` `NULLABLE`
  varchar(3) character set utf8 not null;
\! echo "Rename back to original name (slow technique):"
set old_alter_table=1;
alter table small_table change `NULLABLE` `IS_NULLABLE`
  varchar(3) character set utf8 not null;

\! echo "Rename column (fast technique, big table):"
set old_alter_table=0;
alter table big_table change `IS_NULLABLE` `NULLABLE`
  varchar(3) character set utf8 not null;
\! echo "Rename back to original name (slow technique):"
set old_alter_table=1;
alter table big_table change `NULLABLE` `IS_NULLABLE`
  varchar(3) character set utf8 not null;
set old_alter_table=0;

Running this code gives this output, condensed for brevity and with the most important points bolded:

Rename column (fast technique, small table):
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.13 sec)

Rename back to original name (slow technique):
Query OK, 1678 rows affected (0.35 sec)

Rename column (fast technique, big table):
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.11 sec)

Rename back to original name (slow technique):
Query OK, 1718272 rows affected (1 min 0.00 sec)

Example 5. Dropping Foreign Keys

Here is a demonstration of foreign keys, including improvement to the speed of dropping a foreign key constraint.

/*
Demonstrate aspects of foreign keys that are or aren't affected by the DDL improvements.
- Create a new table with only a few values to serve as the parent table.
- Set up the 'small' and 'big' tables as child tables using a foreign key.
- Verify that the ON DELETE CASCADE clause makes changes ripple from parent to child tables.
- Drop the foreign key constraints, and optionally associated indexes.
  (This is the operation that is sped up.)
*/

\! clear

-- Make sure foreign keys are being enforced, and allow
-- rollback after doing some DELETEs that affect both
-- parent and child tables.
set foreign_key_checks = 1;
set autocommit = 0;

-- Create a parent table, containing values that we know are already present
-- in the child tables.
drop table if exists schema_names;
create table schema_names (id int unsigned not null primary key auto_increment,
  schema_name varchar(64) character set utf8 not null, index i_schema (schema_name))
  as select distinct table_schema schema_name from small_table;

show create table schema_names\G
show create table small_table\G
show create table big_table\G

-- Creating the foreign key constraint isn't any faster than before.
-- It still involves a table rebuild, as illustrated by the "rows affected" figure.
alter table small_table add constraint small_fk
  foreign key i_table_schema (table_schema) references schema_names(schema_name)
  on delete cascade;
alter table big_table add constraint big_fk
  foreign key i_table_schema (table_schema) references schema_names(schema_name)
  on delete cascade;

show create table small_table\G
show create table big_table\G

select schema_name from schema_names order by schema_name;
select count(table_schema) howmany, table_schema from small_table group by table_schema;
select count(table_schema) howmany, table_schema from big_table group by table_schema;

-- big_table is the parent table.
-- schema_names is the parent table.
-- big_table is the child table.
-- (One row in the parent table can have many "children" in the child table.)
-- Changes to the parent table can ripple through to the child table.
-- For example, removing the value 'test' from schema_names.schema_name will
-- result in the removal of 20K or so rows from big_table.

delete from schema_names where schema_name = 'test';

select schema_name from schema_names order by schema_name;
select count(table_schema) howmany, table_schema from small_table group by table_schema;
select count(table_schema) howmany, table_schema from big_table group by table_schema;

-- Because we've turned off autocommit, we can still get back those deleted rows
-- if the DELETE was issued by mistake.
rollback;

select schema_name from schema_names order by schema_name;
select count(table_schema) howmany, table_schema from small_table group by table_schema;
select count(table_schema) howmany, table_schema from big_table group by table_schema;

-- All of the cross-checking between parent and child tables would be
-- deadly slow if there wasn't the requirement for the corresponding
-- columns to be indexed!

-- But we can get rid of the foreign key using a fast operation
-- that doesn't rebuild the table.
-- If we didn't specify a constraint name when setting up the foreign key, we would
-- have to find the auto-generated name such as 'big_table_ibfk_1' in the
-- output from 'show create table'.

-- For the small table, we'll drop the foreign key and the associated index.
-- Having an index on a small table is less critical.

\! echo "DROP FOREIGN KEY and INDEX from small_table:"
alter table small_table drop foreign key small_fk, drop index small_fk;

-- For the big table, we'll drop the foreign key and leave the associated index.
-- If we are still doing queries that reference the indexed column, the index is
-- very important to avoid a full table scan of the big table.
\! echo "DROP FOREIGN KEY from big_table:"
alter table big_table drop foreign key big_fk;

show create table small_table\G
show create table big_table\G

Running this code gives this output, condensed for brevity and with the most important points bolded:

Query OK, 4 rows affected (0.03 sec)

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: schema_names
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `schema_names` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `schema_name` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `i_schema` (`schema_name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=8 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: small_table
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `small_table` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `COLUMN_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `ORDINAL_POSITION` bigint(21) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `COLUMN_DEFAULT` longtext CHARACTER SET utf8,
  `IS_NULLABLE` varchar(3) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `DATA_TYPE` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHARACTER_OCTET_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `NUMERIC_PRECISION` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `NUMERIC_SCALE` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `DATETIME_PRECISION` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHARACTER_SET_NAME` varchar(32) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `COLLATION_NAME` varchar(32) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `COLUMN_TYPE` longtext CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `COLUMN_KEY` varchar(3) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `EXTRA` varchar(30) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `PRIVILEGES` varchar(80) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `COLUMN_COMMENT` varchar(1024) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=1679 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: big_table
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `big_table` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `COLUMN_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `ORDINAL_POSITION` bigint(21) unsigned NOT NULL DEFAULT '0',
  `COLUMN_DEFAULT` longtext CHARACTER SET utf8,
  `IS_NULLABLE` varchar(3) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `DATA_TYPE` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `CHARACTER_MAXIMUM_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHARACTER_OCTET_LENGTH` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `NUMERIC_PRECISION` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `NUMERIC_SCALE` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `DATETIME_PRECISION` bigint(21) unsigned DEFAULT NULL,
  `CHARACTER_SET_NAME` varchar(32) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `COLLATION_NAME` varchar(32) CHARACTER SET utf8 DEFAULT NULL,
  `COLUMN_TYPE` longtext CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  `COLUMN_KEY` varchar(3) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `EXTRA` varchar(30) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `PRIVILEGES` varchar(80) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `COLUMN_COMMENT` varchar(1024) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `big_fk` (`TABLE_SCHEMA`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=1718273 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Query OK, 1678 rows affected (0.10 sec)
Query OK, 1718272 rows affected (1 min 14.54 sec)

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: small_table
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `small_table` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  ...
  `COLUMN_COMMENT` varchar(1024) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `small_fk` (`TABLE_SCHEMA`),
  CONSTRAINT `small_fk` FOREIGN KEY (`TABLE_SCHEMA`)
  REFERENCES `schema_names` (`schema_name`)
  ON DELETE CASCADE
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=1679 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.12 sec)

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: big_table
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `big_table` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  ...
  `COLUMN_COMMENT` varchar(1024) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `big_fk` (`TABLE_SCHEMA`),
  CONSTRAINT `big_fk` FOREIGN KEY (`TABLE_SCHEMA`)
  REFERENCES `schema_names` (`schema_name`)
  ON DELETE CASCADE
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=1718273 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.01 sec)

+--------------------+
| schema_name        |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| test               |
+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

+---------+--------------------+
| howmany | table_schema       |
+---------+--------------------+
|     563 | information_schema |
|     286 | mysql              |
|     786 | performance_schema |
|      43 | test               |
+---------+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.01 sec)

+---------+--------------------+
| howmany | table_schema       |
+---------+--------------------+
|  576512 | information_schema |
|  292864 | mysql              |
|  804864 | performance_schema |
|   44032 | test               |
+---------+--------------------+
4 rows in set (2.10 sec)

Query OK, 1 row affected (1.52 sec)

+--------------------+
| schema_name        |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
+--------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

+---------+--------------------+
| howmany | table_schema       |
+---------+--------------------+
|     563 | information_schema |
|     286 | mysql              |
|     786 | performance_schema |
+---------+--------------------+
3 rows in set (0.00 sec)

+---------+--------------------+
| howmany | table_schema       |
+---------+--------------------+
|  576512 | information_schema |
|  292864 | mysql              |
|  804864 | performance_schema |
+---------+--------------------+
3 rows in set (1.74 sec)

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.60 sec)

+--------------------+
| schema_name        |
+--------------------+
| information_schema |
| mysql              |
| performance_schema |
| test               |
+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

+---------+--------------------+
| howmany | table_schema       |
+---------+--------------------+
|     563 | information_schema |
|     286 | mysql              |
|     786 | performance_schema |
|      43 | test               |
+---------+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.01 sec)

+---------+--------------------+
| howmany | table_schema       |
+---------+--------------------+
|  576512 | information_schema |
|  292864 | mysql              |
|  804864 | performance_schema |
|   44032 | test               |
+---------+--------------------+
4 rows in set (1.59 sec)

DROP FOREIGN KEY and INDEX from small_table:
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

DROP FOREIGN KEY from big_table:
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec)

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: small_table
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `small_table` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  ...
  `COLUMN_COMMENT` varchar(1024) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=1679 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: big_table
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `big_table` (
  `TABLE_CATALOG` varchar(512) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_SCHEMA` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `TABLE_NAME` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  ...
  `COLUMN_COMMENT` varchar(1024) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL DEFAULT '',
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `big_fk` (`TABLE_SCHEMA`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=1718273 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Example 6. Changing Auto-Increment Value

Here is an illustration of increasing the auto-increment lower limit for a table column, demonstrating how this operation now avoids a table rebuild, plus some other fun facts about InnoDB auto-increment columns.

/*
If this script is run after foreign_key.sql, the schema_names table is
already set up. But to allow this script to run multiple times without
running into duplicate ID errors, we set up the schema_names table
all over again.
*/

\! clear

\! echo "=== Adjusting the Auto-Increment Limit for a Table ==="
\! echo

drop table if exists schema_names;
create table schema_names (id int unsigned not null primary key auto_increment,
  schema_name varchar(64) character set utf8 not null,
  index i_schema (schema_name))
  as select distinct table_schema schema_name from small_table;

\! echo "Initial state of schema_names table."
\! echo "AUTO_INCREMENT is included in SHOW CREATE TABLE output."
\! echo "Note how MySQL reserved a block of IDs,"
\! echo "but only needed 4 of them in this transaction,"
\! echo "so the next inserted values would get IDs 8 and 9."
show create table schema_names\G
select * from schema_names order by id;

\! echo "Inserting even a tiny amount of data can produce gaps in the ID sequence."
insert into schema_names (schema_name) values ('eight'), ('nine');

set old_alter_table=0;
\! echo "Bumping auto-increment lower limit to 20 (fast mechanism):"
alter table schema_names auto_increment=20;

\! echo "Inserting 2 rows that should get IDs 20 and 21:"
insert into schema_names (schema_name) values ('foo'), ('bar');
commit;

set old_alter_table=1;
\! echo "Bumping auto-increment lower limit to 30 (slow mechanism):"
alter table schema_names auto_increment=30;

\! echo "Inserting 2 rows that should get IDs 30 and 31:"
insert into schema_names (schema_name) values ('bletch'),('baz');
commit;

select * from schema_names order by id;

set old_alter_table=0;

\! echo "Final state of schema_names table."
\! echo "AUTO_INCREMENT value shows the next inserted row would get ID=32."
show create table schema_names\G

Running this code gives this output, condensed for brevity and with the most important points bolded:

=== Adjusting the Auto-Increment Limit for a Table ===

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

Query OK, 4 rows affected (0.02 sec)
Records: 4  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

Initial state of schema_names table.
AUTO_INCREMENT is included in SHOW CREATE TABLE output.
Note how MySQL reserved a block of IDs,
but only needed 4 of them in this transaction,
so the next inserted values would get IDs 8 and 9.
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: schema_names
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `schema_names` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `schema_name` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `i_schema` (`schema_name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=8 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

+----+--------------------+
| id | schema_name        |
+----+--------------------+
|  1 | information_schema |
|  2 | mysql              |
|  3 | performance_schema |
|  4 | test               |
+----+--------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Inserting even a tiny amount of data can produce gaps in the ID sequence.
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)
Records: 2  Duplicates: 0  Warnings: 0

Bumping auto-increment lower limit to 20 (fast mechanism):
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

Inserting 2 rows that should get IDs 20 and 21:
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Bumping auto-increment lower limit to 30 (slow mechanism):
Query OK, 8 rows affected (0.02 sec)

Inserting 2 rows that should get IDs 30 and 31:
Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)

+----+--------------------+
| id | schema_name        |
+----+--------------------+
|  1 | information_schema |
|  2 | mysql              |
|  3 | performance_schema |
|  4 | test               |
|  8 | eight              |
|  9 | nine               |
| 20 | foo                |
| 21 | bar                |
| 30 | bletch             |
| 31 | baz                |
+----+--------------------+
10 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Final state of schema_names table.
AUTO_INCREMENT value shows the next inserted row would get ID=32.
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: schema_names
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `schema_names` (
  `id` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `schema_name` varchar(64) CHARACTER SET utf8 NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`),
  KEY `i_schema` (`schema_name`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=32 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1
1 row in set (0.00 sec)