Is an explicit KEY redundant if it is covered by a UNIQUE KEY? I am auditing an application which I've been developing over the course of several weeks. I've noticed this in CREATE TABLE:

UNIQUE KEY `baz_3` (`baz`,`foo`,`bar`),
KEY `baz` (`baz`),


Is the explicit KEY redundant, as I think it is? I just want to make sure before I DROP it. From what I've read I do believe that the  UNIQUE KEY will act as an Index when the application performs WHERE baz='something' but MySQL seems so intricate that I find it prudent to ask here first.
Yes, you can drop it because baz and baz_3 have identical leading columns. This scenario is known as having redundant indexes.

However, be careful that the key baz is not being used to support a foreign key constraint if the table is InnoDB. See my post Do I have duplicate key indexes?

If the table is MyISAM, go ahead and drop it with confidence. The MySQL Query Optimizer will use the UNIQUE KEY baz_3 for query optimization in its execution plans.

If you want to locate all tables with redundant indexes, see this post : MySql - find redundant indexes