Re: Can't drop Index on empty table - ORA-02429

Hi,

The index was likely created by Oracle as a result of someone making those columns the Primary Key (as opposed to being created directly with the CREATE INDEX command)

Therefore, to get rid of it, drop the Primary Key constraint and let Oracle drop the index...use syntax like the following:

SQL> alter table t
  2 drop constraint t_pk;

Table altered.

(of course you'll substitute the actual table name and constraint name)

So, work on dropping the Primary Key constraint itself , not the indexes that enforce it! Since the index was created indirectly through the PK constraint it must be dropped that way too or you get the error you've described!

Take care,

Steve

"N" <nickel10b_at_hotmail.com> wrote in message news:77c198f0.0201070954.3960f740_at_posting.google.com...
> I'm beginning work on an Oracle table that was created by someone
> else. The table has not been used yet, and has no data in it. It has
> a unique index on it which is a combination of 4 columns. I'd like to
> remove one of the four and replace it with a different column.
>
> I'm unable to alter the index, perhaps because of syntax issues. When
> I tried to drop the index to start over, I got this message:
>
> ORA-02429: cannot drop index used for enforcement of unique/primary
> key
>
> What can I do to get around this? Thanks.
Received on Mon Jan 07 2002 - 12:15:07 CST