EC
1354
MySQLerrorddlhigh confidence

Column used in key specification without key length cannot be NULL

Production Risk

Low — DDL fails; no data affected.

What this means

A column in a key specification allows NULL values in a context that requires NOT NULL (e.g. certain storage engines or index types).

Why it happens
  1. 1Adding a spatial index on a nullable column
  2. 2Specific index requirements of non-InnoDB engines
How to reproduce
trigger — this will error
trigger — this will error
CREATE TABLE t (geom GEOMETRY) ENGINE=MyISAM; CREATE SPATIAL INDEX idx ON t(geom);

expected output

ERROR 1354 (42000): Column 'geom' used in key specification without a key length cannot be NULL

Fix

Make the column NOT NULL

Make the column NOT NULL
ALTER TABLE t MODIFY geom GEOMETRY NOT NULL;

Why this works

Satisfies the index requirement for non-nullable columns.

Version notes

Sources
Official documentation ↗

MySQL 8.0 — 1354 ER_NULL_COLUMN_IN_INDEX

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