Constraint enforcement limitations

Vertica does not support constraint enforcement for foreign keys or external tables. Restrictions also apply to temporary tables.

Foreign keys

Vertica does not support enforcement of foreign keys and referential integrity. Thus, it is possible to load data that can return errors in the following cases:

• An inner join query is processed.

• An outer join is treated as an inner join due to the presence of foreign keys.

To validate foreign key constraints, use ANALYZE_CONSTRAINTS.

External tables

Vertica does not support automatic enforcement of constraints on external tables.

Local temporary tables

ALTER TABLE can set enforcement on a primary key or unique constraint in a local temporary table only if the table contains no data. If you try to enforce a constraint in a table that contains data, ALTER TABLE returns an error.

Global temporary tables

In a global temporary table, you set enforcement on a primary key or unique constraint only with CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE. ALTER TABLE returns an error if you try to set enforcement on a primary key or unique constraint in an existing table, whether populated or empty.