How do I handle too long index names in a Ruby on Rails ActiveRecord migration?

Question

I am trying to add an unique index that gets created from the foreign keys of four associated tables:

add_index :studies,   ["user_id", "university_id", "subject_name_id", "subject_type_id"],   :unique => true 

The database’s limitation for the index name causes the migration to fail. Here’s the error message:

Index name 'index_studies_on_user_id_and_university_id_and_subject_name_id_and_subject_type_id' on table 'studies' is too long; the limit is 64 characters

How can I handle this? Can I specify a different index name?

Answer 1

Provide the :name option to add_index, e.g.:

add_index :studies,   ["user_id", "university_id", "subject_name_id", "subject_type_id"],    unique: true,   name: 'my_index' 

If using the :index option on references in a create_table block, it takes the same options hash as add_index as its value:

t.references :long_name, index: { name: :my_index } 

Answer 2

You can also change the index name in column definitions within a create_table block (such as you get from the migration generator).

create_table :studies do |t|   t.references :user, index: {:name => "index_my_shorter_name"} end