Enforce unique values across two tables

Question

Is it possible to enforce uniqueness across two tables in MySQL?

I have two tables, both describing users. The users in these tables were for two different systems previously, however now we're merging our authentication systems and I need to make sure that there are unique usernames across these two tables. (it's too much work to put them all into one table right now).

Answer 1

You can't declare a UNIQUE constraint across multiple tables, and MySQL does not support CHECK constraints at all. But you can design a trigger to search for the matching value in the other table. Here's a test SQL script:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS foo;
CREATE TABLE FOO (username VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL);

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS bar;
CREATE TABLE BAR (username VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL);

DROP TRIGGER IF EXISTS unique_foo;
DROP TRIGGER IF EXISTS unique_bar;

DELIMITER //

CREATE TRIGGER unique_foo BEFORE INSERT ON foo
FOR EACH ROW BEGIN
  DECLARE c INT;
  SELECT COUNT(*) INTO c FROM bar WHERE username = NEW.username;
  IF (c > 0) THEN
    -- abort insert, because foo.username should be NOT NULL
    SET NEW.username = NULL;
  END IF;
END//

CREATE TRIGGER unique_bar BEFORE INSERT ON bar
FOR EACH ROW BEGIN
  DECLARE c INT;
  SELECT COUNT(*) INTO c FROM foo WHERE username = NEW.username;
  IF (c > 0) THEN
    -- abort insert, because bar.username should be NOT NULL
    SET NEW.username = NULL;
  END IF;
END//

DELIMITER ;

INSERT INTO foo VALUES ('bill');  -- OK

INSERT INTO bar VALUES ('bill');  -- Column 'username' cannot be null

You also need similar triggers ON UPDATE for each table, but you shouldn't need any triggers ON DELETE.

Answer 2

the best way to do this is to declare another table with the unique columns, and have the multiple tables reference these tables