How to drop a unique constraint from table column?

Question

I have a table 'users' with 'login' column defined as:

[login] VARCHAR(50) UNIQUE NOT NULL

Now I want to remove this unique constraint/index using SQL script. I found its name UQ_users_7D78A4E7 in my local database but I suppose it has a different name on another database.

What is the best way to drop this unique constraint? Or at least any...

Thanks.

Solution 1

SKINDER, your code does not use column name. Correct script is:

declare @table_name nvarchar(256)  
declare @col_name nvarchar(256)  
declare @Command  nvarchar(1000)  

set @table_name = N'users'
set @col_name = N'login'

select @Command = 'ALTER TABLE ' + @table_name + ' drop constraint ' + d.name
    from sys.tables t 
    join sys.indexes d on d.object_id = t.object_id  and d.type=2 and d.is_unique=1
    join sys.index_columns ic on d.index_id=ic.index_id and ic.object_id=t.object_id
    join sys.columns c on ic.column_id = c.column_id  and c.object_id=t.object_id
    where t.name = @table_name and c.name=@col_name

print @Command

--execute (@Command)

Solution 2

ALTER TABLE users
DROP CONSTRAINT 'constraints_name'

if earlier constraints_name is not provided, it will have some default constraint_name, in pgAdmin 4 (pSql), try violating the constraint and you can see the constraint_name being violated in the error received, most probably same must be the case with other platforms or there are some articles available over web where constraint_name is extracted from certain tables where they are stored, not sure about this though. P.S : Can take reference from comments also

Solution 3

This works mostly.

drop index IX_dbo_YourTableName__YourColumnName on dbo.YourTableName
GO

Solution 4

To drop a UNIQUE constraint, you don’t need the name of the constraint, just the list of columns that are included in the constraint.

The syntax would be:

ALTER TABLE table_name DROP UNIQUE (column1, column2, . . . )

Solution 5

You can use following script :

Declare @Cons_Name NVARCHAR(100)
Declare @Str NVARCHAR(500)

SELECT @Cons_Name=name
FROM sys.objects
WHERE type='UQ' AND OBJECT_NAME(parent_object_id) = N'TableName';

---- Delete the unique constraint.
SET @Str='ALTER TABLE TableName DROP CONSTRAINT ' + @Cons_Name;
Exec (@Str)
GO

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