What is the use of ON COMPLETION PRESERVE clause while creating the event?

As we know that an event is automatically dropped when it is expired and we would not be able to see it from SHOW EVENTS statement. To change such kind of behavior we can use ON COMPLETION PRESERVE while creating the event. It can be understood from the following example −

Example

mysql> Create table event_messages(ID INT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY AUTO_INCREMENT, MESSAGE VARCHAR(255) NOT NULL, Generated_at DATETIME NOT NULL);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.61 sec)

The below query will create an event without the use of ON COMPLETION PRESERVE hence it would not be seen in the output of SHOW EVENTS FROM db_name query.

mysql> CREATE EVENT testing_event_without_Preserves ON SCHEDULE AT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP DO INSERT INTO event_messages(message,generated_at) Values('Without Preserve',NOW());
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> Select * from event_messages;
+----+------------------+---------------------+
| ID | MESSAGE          | Generated_at        |
+----+------------------+---------------------+
| 1  | Without Preserve | 2017-11-22 20:32:13 |
+----+------------------+---------------------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW EVENTS FROM query\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
                  Db: query
                Name: testing_event5
             Definer: root@localhost
           Time zone: SYSTEM
                Type: ONE TIME
          Execute at: 2017-11-22 17:09:11
      Interval value: NULL
      Interval field: NULL
              Starts: NULL
                Ends: NULL
              Status: DISABLED
          Originator: 0
character_set_client: cp850
collation_connection: cp850_general_ci
  Database Collation: latin1_swedish_ci
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

The below query will create an event with the use of ON COMPLETION PRESERVE hence it would be seen in the output of SHOW EVENTS FROM db_name query.

mysql> CREATE EVENT testing_event_with_Preserves ON SCHEDULE AT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP ON COMPLETION PRESERVE DO INSERT INTO event_messages(message,generated_at) Values('With Preserve',NOW());
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

mysql> Select * from event_messages;
+----+------------------+---------------------+
| ID | MESSAGE          | Generated_at        |
+----+------------------+---------------------+
| 1  | Without Preserve | 2017-11-22 20:32:13 |
| 2  | With Preserve    | 2017-11-22 20:35:12 |
+----+------------------+---------------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW EVENTS FROM query\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
                  Db: query
                Name: testing_event5
             Definer: root@localhost
           Time zone: SYSTEM
                Type: ONE TIME
          Execute at: 2017-11-22 17:09:11
      Interval value: NULL
      Interval field: NULL
              Starts: NULL
                Ends: NULL
              Status: DISABLED
          Originator: 0
character_set_client: cp850
collation_connection: cp850_general_ci
  Database Collation: latin1_swedish_ci
*************************** 2. row ***************************
                  Db: query
                Name: testing_event_with_Preserves
             Definer: root@localhost
           Time zone: SYSTEM
                Type: ONE TIME
          Execute at: 2017-11-22 20:35:12
      Interval value: NULL
      Interval field: NULL
              Starts: NULL
                Ends: NULL
              Status: DISABLED
          Originator: 0
character_set_client: cp850
collation_connection: cp850_general_ci
  Database Collation: latin1_swedish_ci
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)