Error creating admin course

[miralgj]

On a fresh new install of 2.19 using MySQL Community Server v8.4, when attempting to create the admin course using the command $WEBWORK_ROOT/bin/addcourse admin --db-layout=sql_single --users=$APP_ROOT/courses/adminClasslist.lst --professors=admin I am getting the following error:

DBD::mysql::db do failed: BLOB, TEXT, GEOMETRY or JSON column 'session' can't have a default value at /opt/webwork/webwork2/lib/WeBWorK/DB/Schema/NewSQL/Std.pm line 930.

I knew the installation instructions for 2.19 state that MariaDB is recommended but it also states that MySQL is ok to use. Is this error due to an incompatible database?

[drgrice1]

What version of MySQL is that? Also, are you using the DBD::mysql or DBD::MariaDB perl database driver module?

I believe that recent versions of MySQL do support default values for TEXT columns, but may be mistaken. However, the DBD::mysql driver may not. You could try the DBD:MariaDB driver instead.

If MySQL still does not support default values for TEXT columns, then perhaps it is time to say that we stop supporting use of MySQL.

[dlglin]

From the MySQL docs (https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/8.4/en/data-type-defaults.html):
The BLOB, TEXT, GEOMETRY, and JSON data types can be assigned a default value only if the value is written as an expression, even if the expression value is a literal:

This is permitted (literal default specified as expression):

CREATE TABLE t2 (b BLOB DEFAULT ('abc'));

This produces an error (literal default not specified as expression):

CREATE TABLE t2 (b BLOB DEFAULT 'abc');

[miralgj]

I am using MySQL Community Server 8.4.2 LTS and my database driver is DBD::mysql.

[drgrice1]

@dlgin: I saw that too. That is why I suggested switching to the DBD::MariaDB perl database driver module. It may take care of that, and the DBD::mysql module may not be updated to handle that. Another possibility is to try changing line 33 of lib/WeBWorK/DB/Record/Key.pm to session => { type => "TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT ('{}')" }. So @miralgj, could you try that and see if that resolves the issue? If it does, then I will make a pull request with that change.

[miralgj]

@dlgin: I saw that too. That is why I suggested switching to the DBD::MariaDB perl database driver module. It may take care of that, and the DBD::mysql module may not be updated to handle that. Another possibility is to try changing line 33 of lib/WeBWorK/DB/Record/Key.pm to session => { type => "TEXT NOT NULL DEFAULT ('{}')" }. So @miralgj, could you try that and see if that resolves the issue? If it does, then I will make a pull request with that change.

That does indeed resolve the issue. Thanks!

[somiaj]

The fix has been merged, so closing.