R: Why does dbWriteTable fail when table exists despite 'append = TRUE'

Question

I'm trying to append new data to a MySQL table that already exists using the dbWriteTable method. I've used it in the past without issue however it is now failing because the table already exists. This is despite using overwrite=FALSE, append=TRUE,

The code:

full_sum_table <- 'mydb.summary'    
dbWriteTable(conn=open_connection, name=full_sum_table, value=summary_data_final, overwrite=FALSE, append=TRUE, row.names=0)

Error in mysqlExecStatement(conn, statement, ...) : 
   RS-DBI driver: (could not run statement: Table 'summary' already exists)
[1] FALSE
Warning message:
In mysqlWriteTable(conn, name, value, ...) :
  could not create table: aborting mysqlWriteTable

The first call of this code works fine, but subsequent calls fail.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

Environment:

  R version 3.0.2
  Packages: DBI (I was using RMySQL but it is not available for 3.0.2)
  MySQL v5.6.14
  OS: Windows Server 7

Answer 1

This solution was listed by the author in the question and has been moved here.

It appears the bug/feature only occurs when a full table path is used such as myDB.temp_table compared to simply temp_table

> dbWriteTable(conn=open_connection, name='myDB.temp_table', value=summary_data_final, overwrite=FALSE, append=TRUE, row.names=0)
Error in mysqlExecStatement(conn, statement, ...) : 
  RS-DBI driver: (could not run statement: Table 'temp_table' already exists)
[1] FALSE
Warning message:
In mysqlWriteTable(conn, name, value, ...) :
  could not create table: aborting mysqlWriteTable

> dbWriteTable(conn=open_connection, name='temp_table', value=summary_data_final, overwrite=FALSE, append=TRUE, row.names=0)
[1] TRUE

I haven't found this documented anywhere and am surprised that I haven't come across it before.