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The RENAME TABLE statement changes the name of a table. It can also be used to move a table from one database to another.
Note:
It is not possible to rename a table referenced by a view. For more details, see View Dependencies.Required Privileges
The user must have the DROP privilege on the table and the CREATE on the parent database. When moving a table from one database to another, the user must have the CREATE privilege on both the source and target databases.
Synopsis
Parameters
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
IF EXISTS |
Rename the table only if a table with the current name exists; if one does not exist, do not return an error. |
current_name |
The current name of the table. |
new_name |
The new name of the table, which must be unique within its database and follow these identifier rules. When the parent database is not set as the default, the name must be formatted as database.name.The UPSERT and INSERT ON CONFLICT statements use a temporary table called excluded to handle uniqueness conflicts during execution. It's therefore not recommended to use the name excluded for any of your tables. |
Examples
Rename a table
> SHOW TABLES FROM db1;
+--------+
| Table |
+--------+
| table1 |
| table2 |
+--------+
> ALTER TABLE db1.table1 RENAME TO db1.tablea
> SHOW TABLES FROM db1;
+--------+
| Table |
+--------+
| table2 |
| tablea |
+--------+
To avoid an error in case the table does not exist, you can include IF EXISTS:
> ALTER TABLE IF EXISTS db1.table1 RENAME TO db1.table2;
Move a table
To move a table from one database to another, use the above syntax but specify the source database after ALTER TABLE and the target database after RENAME TO:
> SHOW DATABASES;
+----------+
| Database |
+----------+
| db1 |
| db2 |
| system |
+----------+
> SHOW TABLES FROM db1;
+--------+
| Table |
+--------+
| table2 |
| tablea |
+--------+
> SHOW TABLES FROM db2;
+-------+
| Table |
+-------+
+-------+
> ALTER TABLE db1.tablea RENAME TO db2.tablea
> SHOW TABLES FROM db1;
+--------+
| Table |
+--------+
| table2 |
+--------+
> SHOW TABLES FROM db2;
+--------+
| Table |
+--------+
| tablea |
+--------+
See Also
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