janewilliams20

update mytable
set mycolumn = 1
where mycolumn = 0
;

Easy enough? No.

"Error Code: 1175. To disable safe mode, toggle the option in Preferences -> SQL Editor -> Query Editor and reconnect."

So I go there, and am told that safe mode prevents updates and deletes with no WHERE clause. A very good idea - but I've got a perfectly good Where clause, so what's the problem?

That error message has more than one line, and it's hard to even know the second is there to see. It says: "You are using safe update mode and you tried to update a table without a WHERE that uses a KEY column"

A key column? Well, no... and there's no way I sensibly could, for this update.

I don't want to turn off safe mode completely, nor to start & stop. But a bit of Googling comes up with an answer.

SET SQL_SAFE_UPDATES=0;
Do update
SET SQL_SAFE_UPDATES=1;

Should you wish to do this, you don't need all those blogs telling you how to write SQL scripts (the ones that expect you to hand-write a script for every table, and lose the indexes and identity keys on the way). No, you start off by reading a couple of Microsoft white papers on the subject that warn of all the nasty things you should look out for (your application code WILL need some rewrites). Then you download an MS utility called "Microsoft SQL Server Migration Assistant for MySQL". And you use it. It analyses your tables, explains exactly what it plans on doing to change them, and why, creates the new tables (etc) in SQL Server, and is currently migrating my data.

Edit: if you run into trouble with this, Microsoft (or at least that part of it called Welly Lee) are courteous, helpful, reply promptly, and are generally a Good Thing. This is not what I expected, and came as a very nice surprise.

Also memo to any techy friends or readers, of course, but I doubt if most of you will want to know.
( geeking under here )

For the rest of you: yes, I'm really enjoying my new job, thanks.