ALTER TABLE

Syntax#

ALTER [IGNORE] TABLE tbl_name [alter_specification [, alter_specification] …] [partition_options]

Remarks#

    alter_specification: table_options
      | ADD [COLUMN] col_name column_definition [FIRST | AFTER col_name ]
      | ADD [COLUMN] (col_name column_definition,...)
      | ADD {INDEX|KEY} [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...) [index_option] ...
      | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] PRIMARY KEY [index_type] (index_col_name,...) [index_option] ...
      | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] UNIQUE [INDEX|KEY] [index_name] [index_type] (index_col_name,...) [index_option] ...
      | ADD FULLTEXT [INDEX|KEY] [index_name] (index_col_name,...) [index_option] ...
      | ADD SPATIAL [INDEX|KEY] [index_name] (index_col_name,...) [index_option] ...
      | ADD [CONSTRAINT [symbol]] FOREIGN KEY [index_name] (index_col_name,...) reference_definition
      | ALGORITHM [=] {DEFAULT|INPLACE|COPY}
      | ALTER [COLUMN] col_name {SET DEFAULT literal | DROP DEFAULT}
      | CHANGE [COLUMN] old_col_name new_col_name column_definition [FIRST|AFTER col_name]
      | LOCK [=] {DEFAULT|NONE|SHARED|EXCLUSIVE}
      | MODIFY [COLUMN] col_name column_definition [FIRST | AFTER col_name]
      | DROP [COLUMN] col_name
      | DROP PRIMARY KEY
      | DROP {INDEX|KEY} index_name
      | DROP FOREIGN KEY fk_symbol
      | DISABLE KEYS
      | ENABLE KEYS
      | RENAME [TO|AS] new_tbl_name
      | RENAME {INDEX|KEY} old_index_name TO new_index_name
      | ORDER BY col_name [, col_name] ...
      | CONVERT TO CHARACTER SET charset_name [COLLATE collation_name]
      | [DEFAULT] CHARACTER SET [=] charset_name [COLLATE [=] collation_name]
      | DISCARD TABLESPACE
      | IMPORT TABLESPACE
      | FORCE
      | {WITHOUT|WITH} VALIDATION
      | ADD PARTITION (partition_definition)
      | DROP PARTITION partition_names
      | DISCARD PARTITION {partition_names | ALL} TABLESPACE
      | IMPORT PARTITION {partition_names | ALL} TABLESPACE
      | TRUNCATE PARTITION {partition_names | ALL}
      | COALESCE PARTITION number
      | REORGANIZE PARTITION partition_names INTO (partition_definitions)
      | EXCHANGE PARTITION partition_name WITH TABLE tbl_name [{WITH|WITHOUT} VALIDATION]
      | ANALYZE PARTITION {partition_names | ALL}
      | CHECK PARTITION {partition_names | ALL}
      | OPTIMIZE PARTITION {partition_names | ALL}
      | REBUILD PARTITION {partition_names | ALL}
      | REPAIR PARTITION {partition_names | ALL}
      | REMOVE PARTITIONING
      | UPGRADE PARTITIONING
   index_col_name: col_name [(length)] [ASC | DESC]
   index_type: USING {BTREE | HASH}
   index_option: KEY_BLOCK_SIZE [=] value
      | index_type
      | WITH PARSER parser_name
      | COMMENT 'string'

table_options: table_option [[,] table_option] ... (see CREATE TABLE options)

partition_options: (see CREATE TABLE options)

Ref: MySQL 5.7 Reference Manual / … / ALTER TABLE Syntax / 14.1.8 ALTER TABLE Syntax

Changing storage engine; rebuild table; change file_per_table

For example, if t1 is currently not an InnoDB table, this statement changes its storage engine to InnoDB:

ALTER TABLE t1 ENGINE = InnoDB;

If the table is already InnoDB, this will rebuild the table and its indexes and have an effect similar to OPTIMIZE TABLE. You may gain some disk space improvement.

If the value of innodb_file_per_table is currently different than the value in effect when t1 was built, this will convert to (or from) file_per_table.

ALTER COLUMN OF TABLE

CREATE DATABASE stackoverflow;

USE stackoverflow;

Create table stack(
    id_user int NOT NULL,
    username varchar(30) NOT NULL,
    password varchar(30) NOT NULL
);

ALTER TABLE stack ADD COLUMN submit date NOT NULL; -- add new column
ALTER TABLE stack DROP COLUMN submit; -- drop column
ALTER TABLE stack MODIFY submit DATETIME NOT NULL; -- modify type column
ALTER TABLE stack CHANGE submit submit_date DATETIME NOT NULL; -- change type and name of column
ALTER TABLE stack ADD COLUMN mod_id INT NOT NULL AFTER id_user; -- add new column after existing column

ALTER table add INDEX

To improve performance one might want to add indexes to columns

ALTER TABLE TABLE_NAME ADD INDEX `index_name` (`column_name`)

altering to add composite (multiple column) indexes

ALTER TABLE TABLE_NAME ADD INDEX `index_name` (`col1`,`col2`)

Change auto-increment value

Changing an auto-increment value is useful when you don’t want a gap in an AUTO_INCREMENT column after a massive deletion.

For example, you got a lot of unwanted (advertisement) rows posted in your table, you deleted them, and you want to fix the gap in auto-increment values. Assume the MAX value of AUTO_INCREMENT column is 100 now. You can use the following to fix the auto-increment value.

ALTER TABLE your_table_name AUTO_INCREMENT = 101;

Changing the type of a primary key column

ALTER TABLE fish_data.fish DROP PRIMARY KEY;
ALTER TABLE fish_data.fish MODIFY COLUMN fish_id DECIMAL(20,0) NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY;

An attempt to modify the type of this column without first dropping the primary key would result in an error.

Change column definition

The change the definition of a db column, the query below can be used for example, if we have this db schema

users (
    firstname varchar(20),
    lastname varchar(20),
    age char(2)
)

To change the type of age column from char to int, we use the query below:

ALTER TABLE users CHANGE age age tinyint UNSIGNED NOT NULL;

General format is:

ALTER TABLE table_name CHANGE column_name new_column_definition

Renaming a MySQL database

There is no single command to rename a MySQL database but a simple workaround can be used to achieve this by backing up and restoring:

mysqladmin -uroot -p<password> create <new name>
mysqldump -uroot -p<password> --routines <old name> | mysql -uroot -pmypassword <new name>
mysqladmin -uroot -p<password> drop <old name>

Steps:

Copy the lines above into a text editor.
Replace all references to <old name>, <new name> and <password> (+ optionally root to use a different user) with the relevant values.
Execute one by one on the command line (assuming the MySQL “bin” folder is in the path and entering “y” when prompted).

Alternative Steps:

Rename (move) each table from one db to the other. Do this for each table:

RENAME TABLE `<old db>`.`<name>` TO  `<new db>`.`<name>`;

You can create those statements by doing something like

SELECT CONCAT('RENAME TABLE old_db.', table_name, ' TO ',
                           'new_db.', table_name)
    FROM information_schema.TABLES
    WHERE table_schema = 'old_db';

Warning. Do not attempt to do any sort of table or database by simply moving files around on the filesystem. This worked fine in the old days of just MyISAM, but in the new days of InnoDB and tablespaces, it won’t work. Especially when the “Data Dictionary” is moved from the filesystem into system InnoDB tables, probably in the next major release. Moving (as opposed to just DROPping) a PARTITION of an InnoDB table requires using “transportable tablespaces”. In the near future, there won’t even be a file to reach for.

Swapping the names of two MySQL databases

Renaming a MySQL table

Renaming a table can be done in a single command:

RENAME TABLE `<old name>` TO `<new name>`;

The following syntax does exactly the same:

ALTER TABLE `<old name>` RENAME TO `<new name>`;

If renaming a temporary table, the ALTER TABLE version of the syntax must be used.