Index problem...

I'm trying to delete rows from a database, ad I get an error that says "Specified index does not exist. [name of my UQ__foo__0x000BF unique index). What happend was I used to have a colum that was ment to be unique, then I made it un-unique and tried to delete the rows from the table. Something strange happend where the table is looking for a unique key that no longer exists but I can remake the unique key because it says "duplicate key" does not exist. I looked in all the system tables for references to UQ__foo__blah but didnt see anything.

Am I hosed? Do I need to drop the whole table?

Quote:

Originally Posted by RedSon

I'm trying to delete rows from a database, ad I get an error that says "Specified index does not exist. [name of my UQ__foo__0x000BF unique index). What happend was I used to have a colum that was ment to be unique, then I made it un-unique and tried to delete the rows from the table. Something strange happend where the table is looking for a unique key that no longer exists but I can remake the unique key because it says "duplicate key" does not exist. I looked in all the system tables for references to UQ__foo__blah but didnt see anything.

Am I hosed? Do I need to drop the whole table?

Had that one time...try reindexing the table see if it clears or puts it back then go for DROP INDEX of the specific index after rebuilding

This example rebuilds all indexes on the authors table using a fillfactor value
of 70.

DBCC DBREINDEX (authors, '', 70)

index hints on deletes

Can I not use index hints on delete statements as below ? Using SQL 2005
delete
from dbo.table1 WITH (index(idx_test))
where col1 <= 5
Are you getting an error? If so it would be nice to know what.
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
Solid Quality Mentors
"Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
news:udtwNEjUIHA.5404@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Can I not use index hints on delete statements as below ? Using SQL 2005
> delete from dbo.table1 WITH (index(idx_test))
> where col1 <= 5
|||Msg 1069, Level 15, State 1, Line 3
Index hints are only allowed in a FROM clause.
"Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooospam@.shadhawk.com> wrote in message
news:uhAqFXjUIHA.3400@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Are you getting an error? If so it would be nice to know what.
> --
> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
> Solid Quality Mentors
>
> "Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
> news:udtwNEjUIHA.5404@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>
|||How about this:
delete a
from dbo.table1 AS a WITH (index(idx_test))
where a.col1 <= 5
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
Solid Quality Mentors
"Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
news:OdKr5ujUIHA.4280@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Msg 1069, Level 15, State 1, Line 3
> Index hints are only allowed in a FROM clause.
> "Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooospam@.shadhawk.com> wrote in message
> news:uhAqFXjUIHA.3400@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>
|||or just
DELETE table1 from table1 with(index(idx_test))
WHERE col <= 5
But as far as I can tell from the BOL syntax description, the original
DELETE statement is perfectly legal. Is this some kind of bug?
Linchi
"Andrew J. Kelly" wrote:

> How about this:
> delete a
> from dbo.table1 AS a WITH (index(idx_test))
> where a.col1 <= 5
> --
> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
> Solid Quality Mentors
>
> "Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
> news:OdKr5ujUIHA.4280@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>
|||What I'm reading is that DELETE only takes hints from a limited list
<table_hint_limited> and index hints are not in that list.
HTH
Kalen Delaney, SQL Server MVP
www.InsideSQLServer.com
http://blog.kalendelaney.com
"Linchi Shea" <LinchiShea@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3E750688-DD9F-4567-BD65-515160B60119@.microsoft.com...[vbcol=seagreen]
> or just
> DELETE table1 from table1 with(index(idx_test))
> WHERE col <= 5
> But as far as I can tell from the BOL syntax description, the original
> DELETE statement is perfectly legal. Is this some kind of bug?
> Linchi
> "Andrew J. Kelly" wrote:

index hints on deletes

Can I not use index hints on delete statements as below ? Using SQL 2005
delete
from dbo.table1 WITH (index(idx_test))
where col1 <= 5Are you getting an error? If so it would be nice to know what.
--
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
Solid Quality Mentors
"Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
news:udtwNEjUIHA.5404@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Can I not use index hints on delete statements as below ? Using SQL 2005
> delete from dbo.table1 WITH (index(idx_test))
> where col1 <= 5|||Msg 1069, Level 15, State 1, Line 3
Index hints are only allowed in a FROM clause.
"Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooospam@.shadhawk.com> wrote in message
news:uhAqFXjUIHA.3400@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> Are you getting an error? If so it would be nice to know what.
> --
> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
> Solid Quality Mentors
>
> "Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
> news:udtwNEjUIHA.5404@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> Can I not use index hints on delete statements as below ? Using SQL 2005
>> delete from dbo.table1 WITH (index(idx_test))
>> where col1 <= 5
>|||How about this:
delete a
from dbo.table1 AS a WITH (index(idx_test))
where a.col1 <= 5
--
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
Solid Quality Mentors
"Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
news:OdKr5ujUIHA.4280@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Msg 1069, Level 15, State 1, Line 3
> Index hints are only allowed in a FROM clause.
> "Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooospam@.shadhawk.com> wrote in message
> news:uhAqFXjUIHA.3400@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> Are you getting an error? If so it would be nice to know what.
>> --
>> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
>> Solid Quality Mentors
>>
>> "Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
>> news:udtwNEjUIHA.5404@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> Can I not use index hints on delete statements as below ? Using SQL 2005
>> delete from dbo.table1 WITH (index(idx_test))
>> where col1 <= 5
>|||or just
DELETE table1 from table1 with(index(idx_test))
WHERE col <= 5
But as far as I can tell from the BOL syntax description, the original
DELETE statement is perfectly legal. Is this some kind of bug?
Linchi
"Andrew J. Kelly" wrote:
> How about this:
> delete a
> from dbo.table1 AS a WITH (index(idx_test))
> where a.col1 <= 5
> --
> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
> Solid Quality Mentors
>
> "Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
> news:OdKr5ujUIHA.4280@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> > Msg 1069, Level 15, State 1, Line 3
> > Index hints are only allowed in a FROM clause.
> >
> > "Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooospam@.shadhawk.com> wrote in message
> > news:uhAqFXjUIHA.3400@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
> >> Are you getting an error? If so it would be nice to know what.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
> >> Solid Quality Mentors
> >>
> >>
> >> "Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
> >> news:udtwNEjUIHA.5404@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> >> Can I not use index hints on delete statements as below ? Using SQL 2005
> >>
> >> delete from dbo.table1 WITH (index(idx_test))
> >> where col1 <= 5
> >>
> >
>|||What I'm reading is that DELETE only takes hints from a limited list
<table_hint_limited> and index hints are not in that list.
--
HTH
Kalen Delaney, SQL Server MVP
www.InsideSQLServer.com
http://blog.kalendelaney.com
"Linchi Shea" <LinchiShea@.discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:3E750688-DD9F-4567-BD65-515160B60119@.microsoft.com...
> or just
> DELETE table1 from table1 with(index(idx_test))
> WHERE col <= 5
> But as far as I can tell from the BOL syntax description, the original
> DELETE statement is perfectly legal. Is this some kind of bug?
> Linchi
> "Andrew J. Kelly" wrote:
>> How about this:
>> delete a
>> from dbo.table1 AS a WITH (index(idx_test))
>> where a.col1 <= 5
>> --
>> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
>> Solid Quality Mentors
>>
>> "Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
>> news:OdKr5ujUIHA.4280@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> > Msg 1069, Level 15, State 1, Line 3
>> > Index hints are only allowed in a FROM clause.
>> >
>> > "Andrew J. Kelly" <sqlmvpnooospam@.shadhawk.com> wrote in message
>> > news:uhAqFXjUIHA.3400@.TK2MSFTNGP03.phx.gbl...
>> >> Are you getting an error? If so it would be nice to know what.
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
>> >> Solid Quality Mentors
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> "Hassan" <hassan@.test.com> wrote in message
>> >> news:udtwNEjUIHA.5404@.TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> >> Can I not use index hints on delete statements as below ? Using SQL
>> >> 2005
>> >>
>> >> delete from dbo.table1 WITH (index(idx_test))
>> >> where col1 <= 5
>> >>
>> >
>>

Index hint in delete statement?

According to what I see in BOL, the following should work:

delete

from dbo.tbl1 WITH (INDEX(idx_un01))

where tbl1_no = 1

Yet when I syntax check this I get:

Msg 1069, Level 15, State 1, Line 2

Index hints are only allowed in a FROM clause.

(Please ignore the fact that index hints are unnecessary / a bad idea / etc.)

What you wrote is the equivalent of:

delete

dbo.tbl1 WITH (INDEX(idx_un01))

where tbl1_no = 1

So really there's no FROM clause, and the error message returned is correct. If you're going to use a FROM clause, you need to specify what tables you're deleting from. i.e.:

delete dbo.tbl1

from dbo.tbl1 WITH (INDEX(idx_un01))

where tbl1_no = 1

In theory, you can join multiple tables in your FROM clause, which is why you need to indicate what table you want to delete.

|||

Hmmm. Interesting. What is even more interesting is that it accepts the WITH (ROWLOCK) hint without a quibble. I also don't see this syntax as being required in BOL. (It is only mentioned for joins / correlated subqueries.)

ref: ms-help://MS.SQLCC.v9/MS.SQLSVR.v9.en/tsqlref9/html/ed6b2105-0f35-408f-ba51-e36ade7ad5b2.htm

|||

The syntax is TSQL extension for UPDATE/DELETE statement. The ANSI SQL syntax for UPDATE and DELETE does not have a FROM clause at all. So there are two FROM clauses in the TSQL version of DELETE. I think it is a bug that we allow the locking hint and not the INDEX hint. IMO, both should be allowed without the FROM clause containing the table sources. You may want to file a bug at http://connect.microsoft.com. And both FROM clauses are optional also. See the DELETE statement topic in BOL where it is documented completely.

Generally speaking you should try to use the ANSI SQL syntax as far as possible and avoid using hints in most DML statements. The hint is just a hint and it can be overridden due to resource constraints for example. And by forcing certain indexes you are restricting the plan choices for the query optimizer also. Is there any specific reason why you want to use the hint in the DELETE statement? Are you having some wrong plan choices for the DELETE statement? If so, that might be a bug and it will be good if you can post a repro for that.