Renaming Foreign-Key Columns in MySQL: To Drop or Not to Drop?

Renaming Foreign-Key Columns in MySQL: The Dilemma

Renaming foreign-key columns in MySQL can be a tricky task, especially in older versions like 5.1.31. Originally using Django-South for this purpose, users encountered the infamous error 150 pertaining to foreign key constraints.

Manual Approach: Trial and Error

Attempting to manually rename the foreign-key column through raw SQL, one might question whether it's necessary to drop the foreign key constraint first, perform the rename, and then re-add the constraint.

Current Best Practice:

Unfortunately, dropping and re-adding the foreign key constraint seems to be the only reliable method.

Important Precaution:

Before embarking on this process, it's crucial to create a database backup as a safety measure.

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