add_foreign_keys() errors instead of silently dropping action changes

The existing-foreign-key dedup compared only columns and other_table, so
requesting an FK that already exists with different ON DELETE/ON UPDATE
actions was a silent no-op - and with add_foreign_key() raising "already
exists", there was no signal that the requested actions were dropped.
An exact match (including actions) is still skipped for idempotency;
a mismatch now raises AlterError pointing at table.transform().

Also validates that compound foreign keys passed as 4-tuples have the
same number of columns on both sides - extra other-columns were being
silently discarded, e.g. ("t", ("a",), "other", ("a", "b")) created a
single-column key referencing just "a".

Refs https://github.com/simonw/sqlite-utils/issues/769#issuecomment-4900034150

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Simon Willison 2026-07-06 21:53:48 -07:00
commit 16bbfb582d
4 changed files with 71 additions and 3 deletions

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@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ Unreleased
- Fixed a bug where a failed write statement executed with ``db.execute()`` left the driver's implicit transaction open. Every subsequent write then joined that phantom transaction, which nothing committed, so their work was silently rolled back when the connection was closed. The implicit transaction opened by a failed statement is now rolled back before the exception is raised. A failed write inside a transaction opened with ``db.begin()`` or ``db.atomic()`` leaves that transaction open and untouched, as before.
- Fixed a bug where transaction-control statements prefixed with an empty statement - ``db.query("; COMMIT")`` - or a UTF-8 byte order mark slipped past the check that rejects them, committing the caller's open transaction before raising a confusing ``OperationalError``. The keyword scanner used by ``db.query()`` and ``db.execute()`` now skips leading ``;`` and byte order marks, matching what the ``sqlite3`` driver tolerates before the first token, so these statements are rejected with a ``ValueError`` without being executed. The same fix means ``db.execute("; BEGIN")`` no longer auto-commits the transaction it just opened.
- Documented a limitation of ``db.query()``: a ``PRAGMA`` statement that returns no rows raises a ``ValueError`` but still takes effect, because PRAGMA statements run outside the savepoint guard used to roll back other rejected statements. Use ``db.execute()`` for row-less PRAGMA statements.
- ``db.add_foreign_keys()`` no longer silently ignores requested ``ON DELETE``/``ON UPDATE`` actions when a foreign key with the same columns already exists - it raises ``AlterError`` suggesting ``table.transform()``, since the actions of an existing foreign key cannot be changed in place. Exact duplicates, including actions, are still skipped so repeated calls stay idempotent. The method also now validates that compound foreign keys have the same number of columns on both sides, instead of silently discarding the extra columns.
- ``db.ensure_autocommit_on()`` now raises ``TransactionError`` if called while a transaction is open. Assigning ``isolation_level`` commits any pending transaction as a side effect, so entering the block silently committed the caller's open transaction and made a later ``rollback()`` a no-op.
- ``sqlite-utils migrate --stop-before`` now exits with an error if the named migration has already been applied. Previously the name passed validation but was only checked against pending migrations, so every migration after it was silently applied - the exact outcome ``--stop-before`` exists to prevent. ``Migrations.apply(db, stop_before=...)`` raises ``ValueError`` in the same situation, before applying anything.
- Fixed a regression where ``table.insert(..., pk=..., alter=True)`` raised ``InvalidColumns`` if the primary key column did not exist in the table yet. With ``alter=True`` the check now waits until the record keys are known, so a pk column supplied by the records is added by the alter as it was in 3.x. A pk column found in neither the table nor the records still raises ``InvalidColumns``.

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@ -1636,6 +1636,8 @@ Here's an example adding two foreign keys at once:
This method runs the same checks as ``.add_foreign_keys()`` and will raise ``sqlite_utils.db.AlterError`` if those checks fail.
Foreign keys that already exist are silently skipped, so repeated calls are idempotent - but only if they match exactly. Requesting a foreign key that exists with different ``ON DELETE``/``ON UPDATE`` actions raises ``AlterError``: use ``table.transform()`` to change the actions of an existing foreign key.
.. _python_api_index_foreign_keys:
Adding indexes for all foreign keys