Bug #63486 renaming a column causes loss of data

• Submitted: 29 Nov 2011 21:40
• Modified: 27 Sep 2013 5:14
• Reporter: Javier Ortiz
• Status: Closed
• Category: MySQL Workbench
• Severity: S1 (Critical)
• Version: 5.2.35, 5.2.36
• OS: Any
• CPU Architecture: Any

[29 Nov 2011 21:40] Javier Ortiz

Description:
Using the Synchronize with any source to rename columns results in drop add alterations instead of CHANGE COLUMN. This will cause errors or loss of data.

How to repeat:
1) Start the wizard using the source and destination scripts provided.
2) Notice that XincoCoreUser name column is dropped and last_name created afterwards instead of using CHANGE COLUMN instead.

[29 Nov 2011 21:42] Javier Ortiz

Original script (Destination)

Attachment: Destination.sql (application/octet-stream, text), 37.93 KiB.

[29 Nov 2011 21:43] Javier Ortiz

Modified script (Source)

Attachment: Source.sql (application/octet-stream, text), 53.65 KiB.

[29 Nov 2011 21:43] Javier Ortiz

This is how it should look like

Attachment: xinco_upgrade_V2.00.05_to_V3.00.00_MySQL.sql (application/octet-stream, text), 8.26 KiB.

[30 Nov 2011 5:08] Valeriy Kravchuk

When I tried to generate sync. script based on Source.sql and Destination.sql uploaded on Windows XP I've got this:

ALTER TABLE `xinco`.`xinco_core_user` DROP COLUMN `firstname` , DROP COLUMN `name` , ADD COLUMN `last_name` VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL  AFTER `userpassword` , ADD COLUMN `first_name` VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL  AFTER `last_name` ;

So, yes, we have a problem here.

[5 Dec 2011 9:45] Valeriy Kravchuk

Same problem still happens with 5.2.36.

[26 Jun 2012 14:25] Alfredo Kojima

Synchronizing renamed columns in scripts doesn't work because there's no way to know what column was renamed from what. Some day a manual object name matching editor will be added, but for now, that scenario is not expected to work. Synchronizing after renaming in a model (which had once known the original object name) should work.

[11 Mar 2013 17:55] Rasmus Schultz

This critical error has been known for more than a year and a half.

Any plans to fix this?

[27 Sep 2013 5:14] Philip Olson

Fixed as of MySQL Workbench 6.0.3, and here's the changelog entry:

A column name mapping editor was added to the synchronize wizard, as
sometimes manually adjusting the column mapping is required.

Thank you for the bug report.