In Mysql 5.1, what are table names that look like "#sql-44a5_1bc"?

I have a foreign key problem that makes absolutely no sense. All conventional reason is unable to solve the problem, and I am at a loss. I think the crux of the problem lies in the fact 开发者_高级运维that one of the error messages is reporting the table '#sql-44a5_1bc'. Does anyone know what this is? What created it? Is this just a hidden name for an actual table?

Here is my foreign key problem too, if you feel like helping with that. It's still unsolved and this is a big problem because this is on a production database:

Problem adding Foreign Key using Alter Table with existing MYSQL Database - can't add it! Help!

I guess it is the temporary table created during ALTER TABLE. I've seen something similar when I tried to add a fk constraint to a table. The data present in the table violated the constraint I've tried to add, and the error message referenced a table name similar to the one you mention.

See MySQL-Docs:

In most cases, ALTER TABLE makes a temporary copy of the original table. MySQL incorporates the alteration into the copy, then deletes the original table and renames the new one.