What is the significance of the index name when creating an index in MySQL?

Question

I\'ve done something like this in order to use on duplicate key update:

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX blah on mytable(my_col_to_make_an_index);
         


        

Answer 1

The index name is used to reference the index for future commands. Like drop index.

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/drop-index.html

Just think of index names like table names. You can just as easily make a table called 'blah'.

CREATE TABLE blah (f1 int);

But 'blah' isn't very helpful for future reference. Just be consistent. something like

CREATE UNIQUE INDEX field_uniq on mytable(field);

or

CREATE INDEX field1_field2_inx on mytable(field1, field2);