How do I check the value of a foreign key on insert? - sql

Question

I'm teaching myself SQL using Sqlite3, well suited for my forever-game project (Don't we all have one?) and have the following tables:
CREATE TABLE equipment_types (
row_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
type TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE);
INSERT INTO equipment_types (type) VALUES ('gear'), ('weapon');
CREATE TABLE equipment_names (
row_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
name TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE);
INSERT INTO equipment_names (name) VALUES ('club'), ('band aids');
CREATE TABLE equipment (
row_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
name INTEGER NOT NULL UNIQUE REFERENCES equipment_names,
type INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES equipment_types);
INSERT INTO equipment (name, type) VALUES (1, 2), (2, 1);
So now we have a 'club' that is a 'weapon', and 'band aids' that are 'gear'. I now want to make a weapons table; it will have an equipment_id that references the equipment table and weapon properties like damage and range, etc. I want to constrain it to equipment that is a 'weapon' type.
But for the life of me I can't figure it out. CHECK, apparently, only allows expressions, not subqueries, and I've been trying to craft a TRIGGER that might do the job, but in short, I can't quite figure out the query and syntax, or how to check the result that as I understand it will be in the form of a table, or null.
Also, are there good online resources for learning SQL more advanced than W3School? Add them as a comment, please.

Answer 1

Just write a query that looks up the type belonging to the new record:
CREATE TRIGGER only_weapons
BEFORE INSERT ON weapons
FOR EACH ROW
WHEN (SELECT et.type
FROM euqipment_types AS et
JOIN equipment AS e ON e.type = et.equipment_type_id
WHERE e.row_id = NEW.equipment_id
) != 'weapon'
BEGIN
SELECT RAISE(FAIL, "not a weapon");
END;

Answer 2

The foreign key references should be to the primary key and to the same time. I would phrase this as:
CREATE TABLE equipment_types (
equipment_type_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
type TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE
);
INSERT INTO equipment_types (type) VALUES ('gear'), ('weapon');
CREATE TABLE equipment_names (
equipment_name_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
name TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE
);
INSERT INTO equipment_names (name) VALUES ('club'), ('band aids');
CREATE TABLE equipment (
equipment_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
equipment_name_id INTEGER NOT NULL UNIQUE REFERENCES equipment_names(equipment_name_id),
equipement_type_id INTEGER NOT NULL REFERENCES equipment_types(equipement_type_id)
);
I would not use the name row_id for the primary key. That is the built-inn default, so the name is not very good. In SQLite, an integer primary key is automatically auto-incremented (see here).