Alter ON DELETE CASCADE in 1 table

I'm really new to ON DELETE CASCADE. How can I delete child comments when the parent comment gets deleted in a table?

Table Schema

'CREATE TABLE `comments` (
  `id` int(11) NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
  `parent` int(11) NOT NULL,
  `comment` varchar(255) CHARACTER SET utf8mb4 NOT NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
) ENGINE=InnoDB AUTO_INCREMENT=135 DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1'

Current Query (fails)

ALTER TABLE comments
   ADD CONSTRAINT `delete_child`
   FOREIGN KEY (`parent`)
   REFERENCES `comments` (`id`)
   ON DELETE CASCADE

Error Code: 1452.

Cannot add or update a child row: a foreign key constraint fails
(App.#sql-1405_16b7, CONSTRAINT delete_child FOREIGN KEY (parent)
REFERENCES comments (id) ON DELETE CASCADE)


This SQLFiddle shows my situation. It works in SQLFiddle but not in MySQLWorkbench.

The error indicates that you have invalid references in the parentId column.

This error shows when you are trying to insert a row with an invalid reference, update an existing row with an invalid reference, or delete a row that is referenced. You also get it when you are trying to create a foreign key constraint on a column that is already populated and contains references to non-existing rows, which is what happens in your case.

Solution: check the contents of the parentId column and correct/remove the invalid references.

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#117606, answer score: 7