Oracle (ORA-02270) : no matching unique or primary key for this column-list error

Question

I have two tables, Table JOB and Table USER, here is the structure

 CREATE TABLE JOB
 (
   ID       NUMBER NOT NULL ,
   USERID   NUMBER,
   CONSTRAINT B_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) ENABLE
 );

 CREATE TABLE USER
 (
   ID       NUMBER NOT NULL ,
   CONSTRAINT U_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) ENABLE
 );

Now, i want to add foreign key constraint to JOB referencing to USER table, as

Alter Table JOB ADD CONSTRAINT FK_USERID FOREIGN KEY(USERID) REFERENCES USER(ID);

this throws Oracle (ORA-02270) : no matching unique or primary key for this column-list error, doing some investigation it appears that we need to have either unique key or primary key constraint on USERID but I cannot have that as one USERID can have multiple JOBS associated with him, any thoughts or suggestions on how to fix this issue?

Researched ORA-02270 and SO related question

Answer 1

The ORA-2270 error is a straightforward logical error: it happens when the columns we list in the foreign key do not match a primary key or unique constraint on the parent table. Common reasons for this are

• the parent lacks a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE constraint altogether
• the foreign key clause references the wrong column in the parent table
• the parent table's constraint is a compound key and we haven't referenced all the columns in the foreign key statement.

Neither appears to be the case in your posted code. But that's a red herring, because your code does not run as you have posted it. Judging from the previous edits I presume you are not posting your actual code but some simplified example. Unfortunately in the process of simplification you have eradicated whatever is causing the ORA-2270 error.

SQL> CREATE TABLE JOB
 (
   ID       NUMBER NOT NULL ,
   USERID   NUMBER,
   CONSTRAINT B_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) ENABLE
 );  2    3    4    5    6  

Table created.

SQL> CREATE TABLE USER
 (
   ID       NUMBER NOT NULL ,
   CONSTRAINT U_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) ENABLE
 );  2    3    4    5  
CREATE TABLE USER
             *
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00903: invalid table name


SQL> 

That statement failed because USER is a reserved keyword so we cannot name a table USER. Let's fix that:

SQL> 1
  1* CREATE TABLE USER
SQL> a s
  1* CREATE TABLE USERs
SQL> l
  1  CREATE TABLE USERs
  2   (
  3     ID       NUMBER NOT NULL ,
  4     CONSTRAINT U_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) ENABLE
  5*  )
SQL> r
  1  CREATE TABLE USERs
  2   (
  3     ID       NUMBER NOT NULL ,
  4     CONSTRAINT U_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) ENABLE
  5*  )

Table created.

SQL> Alter Table JOB ADD CONSTRAINT FK_USERID FOREIGN KEY(USERID) REFERENCES USERS(ID);   

Table altered.

SQL> 

And lo! No ORA-2270 error.

Alas, there's not much we can do here to help you further. You have a bug in your code. You can post your code here and one of us can spot your mistake. Or you can check your own code and discover it for yourself.

---

Note: an earlier version of the code defined HOB.USERID as VARCHAR2(20). Because USER.ID is defined as a NUMBER the attempt to create a foreign key would have hurl a different error:

ORA-02267: column type incompatible with referenced column type

An easy way to avoid mismatches is to use foreign key syntax to default the datatype of the column:

CREATE TABLE USERs
 (
   ID    number NOT NULL ,
   CONSTRAINT U_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) ENABLE
 );

CREATE TABLE JOB
 (
   ID       NUMBER NOT NULL ,
   USERID   constraint FK_USERID references users,
   CONSTRAINT B_PK PRIMARY KEY ( ID ) ENABLE
 );

Answer 2

The data type in the Job table (Varchar2(20)) does not match the data type in the USER table (NUMBER NOT NULL).

Answer 3

In my case the problem was cause by a disabled PK.

In order to enable it:

1. I look for the Constraint name with:

   SELECT * FROM USER_CONS_COLUMNS WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'referenced_table_name';

2. Then I took the Constraint name in order to enable it with the following command:

   ALTER TABLE table_name ENABLE CONSTRAINT constraint_name;

Answer 4

We have the following script for create a new table:

CREATE TABLE new_table
(
id                     NUMBER(32) PRIMARY KEY,
referenced_table_id    NUMBER(32)    NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT fk_new_table_referenced_table_id
    FOREIGN KEY (referenced_table_id)
        REFERENCES referenced_table (id)
);

and we were getting this error on execution:

[42000][2270] ORA-02270: no matching unique or primary key for this column-list

The issue was due to disabled primary key of the referenced table in our case. We have to enable it using the following sql:

ALTER TABLE referenced_table ENABLE PRIMARY KEY USING INDEX;

after that we created new table using first script without any issues

Answer 5

The scheme is correct, User.ID must be the primary key of User, Job.ID should be the primary key of Job and Job.UserID should be a foreign key to User.ID. Also, your commands appear to be syntactically correct.

So what could be wrong? I believe you have at least a Job.UserID which doesn't have a pair in User.ID. For instance, if all values of User.ID are: 1,2,3,4,6,7,8 and you have a value of Job.UserID of 5 (which is not among 1,2,3,4,6,7,8, which are the possible values of UserID), you will not be able to create your foreign key constraint. Solution:

delete from Job where UserID in (select distinct User.ID from User);

will delete all jobs with nonexistent users. You might want to migrate these to a copy of this table which will contain archive data.

Answer 6

I faced the same issue in my scenario as follow:

I created textbook table first with

create table textbook(txtbk_isbn varchar2(13)
primary key,txtbk_title varchar2(40),
txtbk_author varchar2(40) );

Then chapter table:

create table chapter(txtbk_isbn varchar2(13),chapter_title varchar2(40), constraint pk_chapter primary key(txtbk_isbn,chapter_title), constraint chapter_txtbook foreign key (txtbk_isbn) references textbook (txtbk_isbn));

Then topic table:

create table topic(topic_id varchar2(20) primary key,topic_name varchar2(40));

Now when I wanted to create a relationship called chapter_topic between chapter (having composite primary key) and topic (having single column primary key), I faced issue with following query:

create table chapter_topic(txtbk_isbn varchar2(13),chapter_title varchar2(40),topic_id varchar2(20), primary key (txtbk_isbn, chapter_title, topic_id), foreign key (txtbk_isbn) references textbook(txtbk_isbn), foreign key (chapter_title) references chapter(chapter_title), foreign key (topic_id) references topic (topic_id));

The solution was to refer to composite foreign key as below:

create table chapter_topic(txtbk_isbn varchar2(13),chapter_title varchar2(40),topic_id varchar2(20), primary key (txtbk_isbn, chapter_title, topic_id), foreign key (txtbk_isbn, chapter_title) references chapter(txtbk_isbn, chapter_title), foreign key (topic_id) references topic (topic_id));

Thanks to APC post in which he mentioned in his post a statement that:

Common reasons for this are
- the parent lacks a constraint altogether
- the parent table's constraint is a compound key and we haven't referenced all the columns in the foreign key statement.
- the referenced PK constraint exists but is DISABLED

Answer 7

Most Probably when you have a missing Primary key is not defined from parent table. then It occurs.

Like Add the primary key define in parent as below:

ALTER TABLE "FE_PRODUCT" ADD CONSTRAINT "FE_PRODUCT_PK" PRIMARY KEY ("ID") ENABLE;

Hope this will work.

Answer 8

When running this command:

ALTER TABLE MYTABLENAME MODIFY CONSTRAINT MYCONSTRAINTNAME_FK ENABLE;

I got this error:

ORA-02270: no matching unique or primary key for this column-list
02270. 00000 -  "no matching unique or primary key for this column-list"
*Cause:    A REFERENCES clause in a CREATE/ALTER TABLE statement
          gives a column-list for which there is no matching unique or primary
          key constraint in the referenced table.
*Action:   Find the correct column names using the ALL_CONS_COLUMNS

The referenced table has a primary key constraint with matching type. The root cause of this error, in my case, was that the primary key constraint was disabled.

Answer 9

Isn't the difference between your declaration of USERID the problem

JOB: UserID is Varchar
USER: UserID is Number?

Answer 10

If primary key is not already defined on parent table then this issue may arise. Please try to define the primary key on existing table. For eg:

ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD PRIMARY KEY (the_column_which_is_primary_key);

Answer 11

create table articles(code varchar2(30)constraint articles_pk primary key,titre varchar2(30),
support varchar2(30) constraint support_fk references supports(support),type_support varchar2(30),
numeroDePage varchar2(30),datepublication date,categorie varchar2(30)constraint categorie_fk references organismes(categorie),
tendance varchar2(30)constraint tendance_fk references apreciations(tendance));