Ruby Forum Ruby on Rails > Beginner mysql problem

I am new to rails and have come across a problem with a sample
application I was working on.
When trying to use rake migrate I got the error listed below.

my db file contains the following

class ContactDb < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
          create_table "people" do |t|
                  t.column "id", :integer
                  t.column "name", :string
                  t.column "address", :string
                  t.column "city", :string
                  t.column "state", :string
                  t.column "zipcode", :string
          end
  end

  def self.down
          drop_table :people
  end
end

and the error is:

== ContactDb: migrating
=======================================================
-- create_table("people")
rake aborted!
Mysql::Error: You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual
that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to
use near '(11), `name` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL, `address`
varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL, `ci' at line 1: CREATE TABLE people (`id`
int(11) DEFAULT NULL auto_increment PRIMARY KEY(11), `name`
varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL, `address` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL, `city`
varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL, `state` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL,
`zipcode` varchar(255) DEFAULT NULL) ENGINE=InnoDB


I'm using a default install.

I noticed that the value supplied to PRIMARY KEY was the number 11.
Any suggestions.

Thanks,
Paul

On Tue, Apr 29, 2008 at 11:31 PM, Donald <dpsthree@gmail.com> wrote:
>                   t.column "id", :integer
Rails adds an id field for you, unless you tell it not to.  So leave 
yours out.

Also, you might check out the new column syntax for use with
create_table.  You can do less now:

t.integer :name

for example.


--
Greg Donald
http://destiney.com/

try it without id

It worked. Thanks!

But out of curiosity what was wrong with the original setup?

Does rails not support the addition of an id field without explicitly
telling it not to add its own, or is there something else going wrong?

thanks again

Try leaving out the spec for the id column--rails will add that for you.

Also--I don't know if it matters (probably doesn't) but if you're using
the current version of rails, there's a new syntax for migrations.
Here's my create_people, FWIW:

class CreatePeople < ActiveRecord::Migration
  def self.up
    create_table :people do |t|
      t.string :first_name, :null => false
      t.string :last_name, :null => false
      t.integer :organization_id
      t.string :personal_url
      t.string :voice_number
      t.string :cell_number
      t.string :email_address, :null => false
      t.date :birth_date
      t.text :notes
    end
    execute("alter table people add constraint fk_organizations foreign
key (organization_id) references organizations (id)")
  end

  def self.down
    drop_table :people
  end
end

HTH,

-Roy