phpmyadmin and foreign keys

Question

I added a foreign key constraint to one of my fields.

On insert, the field is showing up as a drop down instead of a text box, as expected.

But the drop down has each value listed twice, once with a minus sign before the value and once with the minus sign after the value.

Like this:

- value1
- value2
- value3
value1 -
value2 -
value3 -

What does this mean?

Answer 1

Phpmyadmin by default shows foreign key value and a custom description field next to it (which is set in "Relation view" for the table) separated by hyphen.

See also the phpMyAdmin FAQ 6.21, "In edit/insert mode, how can I see a list of possible values for a column, based on some foreign table?".

Answer 2

As mentioned, pmadb does have to be set up however I found that this is set automatically. What you need to do is:

1. In the original table go into the relations view and choose which column to display (for example the descriptive name of the row ie: company name)
2. In the table where you wish to create the foreign key choose the column to display - which is probably going to be an integer ie: (companyID).

When you then go to insert you will find that you can see the both the integer and the corresponding name - ie: 1 - Company name