Provided by: postgresql-client-9.3_9.3.24-0ubuntu0.14.04_amd64 
NAME
ALTER_TABLE - change the definition of a table
SYNOPSIS
ALTER TABLE [ IF EXISTS ] [ ONLY ] name [ * ]
action [, ... ]
ALTER TABLE [ IF EXISTS ] [ ONLY ] name [ * ]
RENAME [ COLUMN ] column_name TO new_column_name
ALTER TABLE [ IF EXISTS ] [ ONLY ] name [ * ]
RENAME CONSTRAINT constraint_name TO new_constraint_name
ALTER TABLE [ IF EXISTS ] name
RENAME TO new_name
ALTER TABLE [ IF EXISTS ] name
SET SCHEMA new_schema
where action is one of:
ADD [ COLUMN ] column_name data_type [ COLLATE collation ] [ column_constraint [ ... ] ]
DROP [ COLUMN ] [ IF EXISTS ] column_name [ RESTRICT | CASCADE ]
ALTER [ COLUMN ] column_name [ SET DATA ] TYPE data_type [ COLLATE collation ] [ USING expression ]
ALTER [ COLUMN ] column_name SET DEFAULT expression
ALTER [ COLUMN ] column_name DROP DEFAULT
ALTER [ COLUMN ] column_name { SET | DROP } NOT NULL
ALTER [ COLUMN ] column_name SET STATISTICS integer
ALTER [ COLUMN ] column_name SET ( attribute_option = value [, ... ] )
ALTER [ COLUMN ] column_name RESET ( attribute_option [, ... ] )
ALTER [ COLUMN ] column_name SET STORAGE { PLAIN | EXTERNAL | EXTENDED | MAIN }
ADD table_constraint [ NOT VALID ]
ADD table_constraint_using_index
VALIDATE CONSTRAINT constraint_name
DROP CONSTRAINT [ IF EXISTS ] constraint_name [ RESTRICT | CASCADE ]
DISABLE TRIGGER [ trigger_name | ALL | USER ]
ENABLE TRIGGER [ trigger_name | ALL | USER ]
ENABLE REPLICA TRIGGER trigger_name
ENABLE ALWAYS TRIGGER trigger_name
DISABLE RULE rewrite_rule_name
ENABLE RULE rewrite_rule_name
ENABLE REPLICA RULE rewrite_rule_name
ENABLE ALWAYS RULE rewrite_rule_name
CLUSTER ON index_name
SET WITHOUT CLUSTER
SET WITH OIDS
SET WITHOUT OIDS
SET ( storage_parameter = value [, ... ] )
RESET ( storage_parameter [, ... ] )
INHERIT parent_table
NO INHERIT parent_table
OF type_name
NOT OF
OWNER TO new_owner
SET TABLESPACE new_tablespace
and table_constraint_using_index is:
[ CONSTRAINT constraint_name ]
{ UNIQUE | PRIMARY KEY } USING INDEX index_name
[ DEFERRABLE | NOT DEFERRABLE ] [ INITIALLY DEFERRED | INITIALLY IMMEDIATE ]
DESCRIPTION
ALTER TABLE changes the definition of an existing table. There are several subforms:
ADD COLUMN
This form adds a new column to the table, using the same syntax as CREATE TABLE
(CREATE_TABLE(7)).
DROP COLUMN [ IF EXISTS ]
This form drops a column from a table. Indexes and table constraints involving the
column will be automatically dropped as well. You will need to say CASCADE if anything
outside the table depends on the column, for example, foreign key references or views.
If IF EXISTS is specified and the column does not exist, no error is thrown. In this
case a notice is issued instead.
IF EXISTS
Do not throw an error if the table does not exist. A notice is issued in this case.
SET DATA TYPE
This form changes the type of a column of a table. Indexes and simple table
constraints involving the column will be automatically converted to use the new column
type by reparsing the originally supplied expression. The optional COLLATE clause
specifies a collation for the new column; if omitted, the collation is the default for
the new column type. The optional USING clause specifies how to compute the new column
value from the old; if omitted, the default conversion is the same as an assignment
cast from old data type to new. A USING clause must be provided if there is no
implicit or assignment cast from old to new type.
SET/DROP DEFAULT
These forms set or remove the default value for a column. Default values only apply in
subsequent INSERT or UPDATE commands; they do not cause rows already in the table to
change.
SET/DROP NOT NULL
These forms change whether a column is marked to allow null values or to reject null
values. You can only use SET NOT NULL when the column contains no null values.
SET STATISTICS
This form sets the per-column statistics-gathering target for subsequent ANALYZE(7)
operations. The target can be set in the range 0 to 10000; alternatively, set it to -1
to revert to using the system default statistics target (default_statistics_target).
For more information on the use of statistics by the PostgreSQL query planner, refer
to Section 14.2, “Statistics Used by the Planner”, in the documentation.
SET ( attribute_option = value [, ... ] ), RESET ( attribute_option [, ... ] )
This form sets or resets per-attribute options. Currently, the only defined
per-attribute options are n_distinct and n_distinct_inherited, which override the
number-of-distinct-values estimates made by subsequent ANALYZE(7) operations.
n_distinct affects the statistics for the table itself, while n_distinct_inherited
affects the statistics gathered for the table plus its inheritance children. When set
to a positive value, ANALYZE will assume that the column contains exactly the
specified number of distinct nonnull values. When set to a negative value, which must
be greater than or equal to -1, ANALYZE will assume that the number of distinct
nonnull values in the column is linear in the size of the table; the exact count is to
be computed by multiplying the estimated table size by the absolute value of the given
number. For example, a value of -1 implies that all values in the column are distinct,
while a value of -0.5 implies that each value appears twice on the average. This can
be useful when the size of the table changes over time, since the multiplication by
the number of rows in the table is not performed until query planning time. Specify a
value of 0 to revert to estimating the number of distinct values normally. For more
information on the use of statistics by the PostgreSQL query planner, refer to Section
14.2, “Statistics Used by the Planner”, in the documentation.
SET STORAGE
This form sets the storage mode for a column. This controls whether this column is
held inline or in a secondary TOAST table, and whether the data should be compressed
or not. PLAIN must be used for fixed-length values such as integer and is inline,
uncompressed. MAIN is for inline, compressible data. EXTERNAL is for external,
uncompressed data, and EXTENDED is for external, compressed data. EXTENDED is the
default for most data types that support non-PLAIN storage. Use of EXTERNAL will make
substring operations on very large text and bytea values run faster, at the penalty of
increased storage space. Note that SET STORAGE doesn't itself change anything in the
table, it just sets the strategy to be pursued during future table updates. See
Section 58.2, “TOAST”, in the documentation for more information.
ADD table_constraint [ NOT VALID ]
This form adds a new constraint to a table using the same syntax as CREATE TABLE
(CREATE_TABLE(7)), plus the option NOT VALID, which is currently only allowed for
foreign key and CHECK constraints. If the constraint is marked NOT VALID, the
potentially-lengthy initial check to verify that all rows in the table satisfy the
constraint is skipped. The constraint will still be enforced against subsequent
inserts or updates (that is, they'll fail unless there is a matching row in the
referenced table, in the case of foreign keys; and they'll fail unless the new row
matches the specified check constraints). But the database will not assume that the
constraint holds for all rows in the table, until it is validated by using the
VALIDATE CONSTRAINT option.
ADD table_constraint_using_index
This form adds a new PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE constraint to a table based on an existing
unique index. All the columns of the index will be included in the constraint.
The index cannot have expression columns nor be a partial index. Also, it must be a
b-tree index with default sort ordering. These restrictions ensure that the index is
equivalent to one that would be built by a regular ADD PRIMARY KEY or ADD UNIQUE
command.
If PRIMARY KEY is specified, and the index's columns are not already marked NOT NULL,
then this command will attempt to do ALTER COLUMN SET NOT NULL against each such
column. That requires a full table scan to verify the column(s) contain no nulls. In
all other cases, this is a fast operation.
If a constraint name is provided then the index will be renamed to match the
constraint name. Otherwise the constraint will be named the same as the index.
After this command is executed, the index is “owned” by the constraint, in the same
way as if the index had been built by a regular ADD PRIMARY KEY or ADD UNIQUE command.
In particular, dropping the constraint will make the index disappear too.
Note
Adding a constraint using an existing index can be helpful in situations where a
new constraint needs to be added without blocking table updates for a long time.
To do that, create the index using CREATE INDEX CONCURRENTLY, and then install it
as an official constraint using this syntax. See the example below.
VALIDATE CONSTRAINT
This form validates a foreign key or check constraint that was previously created as
NOT VALID, by scanning the table to ensure there are no rows for which the constraint
is not satisfied. Nothing happens if the constraint is already marked valid.
Validation can be a long process on larger tables and currently requires an ACCESS
EXCLUSIVE lock. The value of separating validation from initial creation is that you
can defer validation to less busy times, or can be used to give additional time to
correct pre-existing errors while preventing new errors.
DROP CONSTRAINT [ IF EXISTS ]
This form drops the specified constraint on a table. If IF EXISTS is specified and the
constraint does not exist, no error is thrown. In this case a notice is issued
instead.
DISABLE/ENABLE [ REPLICA | ALWAYS ] TRIGGER
These forms configure the firing of trigger(s) belonging to the table. A disabled
trigger is still known to the system, but is not executed when its triggering event
occurs. For a deferred trigger, the enable status is checked when the event occurs,
not when the trigger function is actually executed. One can disable or enable a single
trigger specified by name, or all triggers on the table, or only user triggers (this
option excludes internally generated constraint triggers such as those that are used
to implement foreign key constraints or deferrable uniqueness and exclusion
constraints). Disabling or enabling internally generated constraint triggers requires
superuser privileges; it should be done with caution since of course the integrity of
the constraint cannot be guaranteed if the triggers are not executed. The trigger
firing mechanism is also affected by the configuration variable
session_replication_role. Simply enabled triggers will fire when the replication role
is “origin” (the default) or “local”. Triggers configured as ENABLE REPLICA will only
fire if the session is in “replica” mode, and triggers configured as ENABLE ALWAYS
will fire regardless of the current replication mode.
DISABLE/ENABLE [ REPLICA | ALWAYS ] RULE
These forms configure the firing of rewrite rules belonging to the table. A disabled
rule is still known to the system, but is not applied during query rewriting. The
semantics are as for disabled/enabled triggers. This configuration is ignored for ON
SELECT rules, which are always applied in order to keep views working even if the
current session is in a non-default replication role.
CLUSTER ON
This form selects the default index for future CLUSTER(7) operations. It does not
actually re-cluster the table.
SET WITHOUT CLUSTER
This form removes the most recently used CLUSTER(7) index specification from the
table. This affects future cluster operations that don't specify an index.
SET WITH OIDS
This form adds an oid system column to the table (see Section 5.4, “System Columns”,
in the documentation). It does nothing if the table already has OIDs.
Note that this is not equivalent to ADD COLUMN oid oid; that would add a normal column
that happened to be named oid, not a system column.
SET WITHOUT OIDS
This form removes the oid system column from the table. This is exactly equivalent to
DROP COLUMN oid RESTRICT, except that it will not complain if there is already no oid
column.
SET ( storage_parameter = value [, ... ] )
This form changes one or more storage parameters for the table. See Storage Parameters
for details on the available parameters. Note that the table contents will not be
modified immediately by this command; depending on the parameter you might need to
rewrite the table to get the desired effects. That can be done with VACUUM FULL,
CLUSTER(7) or one of the forms of ALTER TABLE that forces a table rewrite.
Note
While CREATE TABLE allows OIDS to be specified in the WITH (storage_parameter)
syntax, ALTER TABLE does not treat OIDS as a storage parameter. Instead use the
SET WITH OIDS and SET WITHOUT OIDS forms to change OID status.
RESET ( storage_parameter [, ... ] )
This form resets one or more storage parameters to their defaults. As with SET, a
table rewrite might be needed to update the table entirely.
INHERIT parent_table
This form adds the target table as a new child of the specified parent table.
Subsequently, queries against the parent will include records of the target table. To
be added as a child, the target table must already contain all the same columns as the
parent (it could have additional columns, too). The columns must have matching data
types, and if they have NOT NULL constraints in the parent then they must also have
NOT NULL constraints in the child.
There must also be matching child-table constraints for all CHECK constraints of the
parent, except those marked non-inheritable (that is, created with ALTER TABLE ... ADD
CONSTRAINT ... NO INHERIT) in the parent, which are ignored; all child-table
constraints matched must not be marked non-inheritable. Currently UNIQUE, PRIMARY KEY,
and FOREIGN KEY constraints are not considered, but this might change in the future.
NO INHERIT parent_table
This form removes the target table from the list of children of the specified parent
table. Queries against the parent table will no longer include records drawn from the
target table.
OF type_name
This form links the table to a composite type as though CREATE TABLE OF had formed it.
The table's list of column names and types must precisely match that of the composite
type; the presence of an oid system column is permitted to differ. The table must not
inherit from any other table. These restrictions ensure that CREATE TABLE OF would
permit an equivalent table definition.
NOT OF
This form dissociates a typed table from its type.
OWNER
This form changes the owner of the table, sequence, or view to the specified user.
SET TABLESPACE
This form changes the table's tablespace to the specified tablespace and moves the
data file(s) associated with the table to the new tablespace. Indexes on the table, if
any, are not moved; but they can be moved separately with additional SET TABLESPACE
commands. See also CREATE TABLESPACE (CREATE_TABLESPACE(7)).
RENAME
The RENAME forms change the name of a table (or an index, sequence, or view), the name
of an individual column in a table, or the name of a constraint of the table. There is
no effect on the stored data.
SET SCHEMA
This form moves the table into another schema. Associated indexes, constraints, and
sequences owned by table columns are moved as well.
All the actions except RENAME and SET SCHEMA can be combined into a list of multiple
alterations to apply in parallel. For example, it is possible to add several columns
and/or alter the type of several columns in a single command. This is particularly useful
with large tables, since only one pass over the table need be made.
You must own the table to use ALTER TABLE. To change the schema of a table, you must also
have CREATE privilege on the new schema. To add the table as a new child of a parent
table, you must own the parent table as well. To alter the owner, you must also be a
direct or indirect member of the new owning role, and that role must have CREATE privilege
on the table's schema. (These restrictions enforce that altering the owner doesn't do
anything you couldn't do by dropping and recreating the table. However, a superuser can
alter ownership of any table anyway.) To add a column or alter a column type or use the OF
clause, you must also have USAGE privilege on the data type.
PARAMETERS
name
The name (optionally schema-qualified) of an existing table to alter. If ONLY is
specified before the table name, only that table is altered. If ONLY is not specified,
the table and all its descendant tables (if any) are altered. Optionally, * can be
specified after the table name to explicitly indicate that descendant tables are
included.
column_name
Name of a new or existing column.
new_column_name
New name for an existing column.
new_name
New name for the table.
type
Data type of the new column, or new data type for an existing column.
table_constraint
New table constraint for the table.
constraint_name
Name of an existing constraint to drop.
CASCADE
Automatically drop objects that depend on the dropped column or constraint (for
example, views referencing the column).
RESTRICT
Refuse to drop the column or constraint if there are any dependent objects. This is
the default behavior.
trigger_name
Name of a single trigger to disable or enable.
ALL
Disable or enable all triggers belonging to the table. (This requires superuser
privilege if any of the triggers are internally generated constraint triggers such as
those that are used to implement foreign key constraints or deferrable uniqueness and
exclusion constraints.)
USER
Disable or enable all triggers belonging to the table except for internally generated
constraint triggers such as those that are used to implement foreign key constraints
or deferrable uniqueness and exclusion constraints.
index_name
The index name on which the table should be marked for clustering.
storage_parameter
The name of a table storage parameter.
value
The new value for a table storage parameter. This might be a number or a word
depending on the parameter.
parent_table
A parent table to associate or de-associate with this table.
new_owner
The user name of the new owner of the table.
new_tablespace
The name of the tablespace to which the table will be moved.
new_schema
The name of the schema to which the table will be moved.
NOTES
The key word COLUMN is noise and can be omitted.
When a column is added with ADD COLUMN, all existing rows in the table are initialized
with the column's default value (NULL if no DEFAULT clause is specified).
Adding a column with a non-null default or changing the type of an existing column will
require the entire table and indexes to be rewritten. As an exception, if the USING clause
does not change the column contents and the old type is either binary coercible to the new
type or an unconstrained domain over the new type, a table rewrite is not needed, but any
indexes on the affected columns must still be rebuilt. Adding or removing a system oid
column also requires rewriting the entire table. Table and/or index rebuilds may take a
significant amount of time for a large table; and will temporarily require as much as
double the disk space.
Adding a CHECK or NOT NULL constraint requires scanning the table to verify that existing
rows meet the constraint, but does not require a table rewrite.
The main reason for providing the option to specify multiple changes in a single ALTER
TABLE is that multiple table scans or rewrites can thereby be combined into a single pass
over the table.
The DROP COLUMN form does not physically remove the column, but simply makes it invisible
to SQL operations. Subsequent insert and update operations in the table will store a null
value for the column. Thus, dropping a column is quick but it will not immediately reduce
the on-disk size of your table, as the space occupied by the dropped column is not
reclaimed. The space will be reclaimed over time as existing rows are updated. (These
statements do not apply when dropping the system oid column; that is done with an
immediate rewrite.)
To force immediate reclamation of space occupied by a dropped column, you can execute one
of the forms of ALTER TABLE that performs a rewrite of the whole table. This results in
reconstructing each row with the dropped column replaced by a null value.
The rewriting forms of ALTER TABLE are not MVCC-safe. After a table rewrite, the table
will appear empty to concurrent transactions, if they are using a snapshot taken before
the rewrite occurred. See Section 13.5, “Caveats”, in the documentation for more details.
The USING option of SET DATA TYPE can actually specify any expression involving the old
values of the row; that is, it can refer to other columns as well as the one being
converted. This allows very general conversions to be done with the SET DATA TYPE syntax.
Because of this flexibility, the USING expression is not applied to the column's default
value (if any); the result might not be a constant expression as required for a default.
This means that when there is no implicit or assignment cast from old to new type, SET
DATA TYPE might fail to convert the default even though a USING clause is supplied. In
such cases, drop the default with DROP DEFAULT, perform the ALTER TYPE, and then use SET
DEFAULT to add a suitable new default. Similar considerations apply to indexes and
constraints involving the column.
If a table has any descendant tables, it is not permitted to add, rename, or change the
type of a column, or rename an inherited constraint in the parent table without doing the
same to the descendants. That is, ALTER TABLE ONLY will be rejected. This ensures that the
descendants always have columns matching the parent.
A recursive DROP COLUMN operation will remove a descendant table's column only if the
descendant does not inherit that column from any other parents and never had an
independent definition of the column. A nonrecursive DROP COLUMN (i.e., ALTER TABLE ONLY
... DROP COLUMN) never removes any descendant columns, but instead marks them as
independently defined rather than inherited.
The TRIGGER, CLUSTER, OWNER, and TABLESPACE actions never recurse to descendant tables;
that is, they always act as though ONLY were specified. Adding a constraint recurses only
for CHECK constraints that are not marked NO INHERIT.
Changing any part of a system catalog table is not permitted.
Refer to CREATE TABLE (CREATE_TABLE(7)) for a further description of valid parameters.
Chapter 5, Data Definition, in the documentation has further information on inheritance.
EXAMPLES
To add a column of type varchar to a table:
ALTER TABLE distributors ADD COLUMN address varchar(30);
To drop a column from a table:
ALTER TABLE distributors DROP COLUMN address RESTRICT;
To change the types of two existing columns in one operation:
ALTER TABLE distributors
ALTER COLUMN address TYPE varchar(80),
ALTER COLUMN name TYPE varchar(100);
To change an integer column containing UNIX timestamps to timestamp with time zone via a
USING clause:
ALTER TABLE foo
ALTER COLUMN foo_timestamp SET DATA TYPE timestamp with time zone
USING
timestamp with time zone 'epoch' + foo_timestamp * interval '1 second';
The same, when the column has a default expression that won't automatically cast to the
new data type:
ALTER TABLE foo
ALTER COLUMN foo_timestamp DROP DEFAULT,
ALTER COLUMN foo_timestamp TYPE timestamp with time zone
USING
timestamp with time zone 'epoch' + foo_timestamp * interval '1 second',
ALTER COLUMN foo_timestamp SET DEFAULT now();
To rename an existing column:
ALTER TABLE distributors RENAME COLUMN address TO city;
To rename an existing table:
ALTER TABLE distributors RENAME TO suppliers;
To rename an existing constraint:
ALTER TABLE distributors RENAME CONSTRAINT zipchk TO zip_check;
To add a not-null constraint to a column:
ALTER TABLE distributors ALTER COLUMN street SET NOT NULL;
To remove a not-null constraint from a column:
ALTER TABLE distributors ALTER COLUMN street DROP NOT NULL;
To add a check constraint to a table and all its children:
ALTER TABLE distributors ADD CONSTRAINT zipchk CHECK (char_length(zipcode) = 5);
To add a check constraint only to a table and not to its children:
ALTER TABLE distributors ADD CONSTRAINT zipchk CHECK (char_length(zipcode) = 5) NO INHERIT;
(The check constraint will not be inherited by future children, either.)
To remove a check constraint from a table and all its children:
ALTER TABLE distributors DROP CONSTRAINT zipchk;
To remove a check constraint from one table only:
ALTER TABLE ONLY distributors DROP CONSTRAINT zipchk;
(The check constraint remains in place for any child tables.)
To add a foreign key constraint to a table:
ALTER TABLE distributors ADD CONSTRAINT distfk FOREIGN KEY (address) REFERENCES addresses (address);
To add a (multicolumn) unique constraint to a table:
ALTER TABLE distributors ADD CONSTRAINT dist_id_zipcode_key UNIQUE (dist_id, zipcode);
To add an automatically named primary key constraint to a table, noting that a table can
only ever have one primary key:
ALTER TABLE distributors ADD PRIMARY KEY (dist_id);
To move a table to a different tablespace:
ALTER TABLE distributors SET TABLESPACE fasttablespace;
To move a table to a different schema:
ALTER TABLE myschema.distributors SET SCHEMA yourschema;
To recreate a primary key constraint, without blocking updates while the index is rebuilt:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX CONCURRENTLY dist_id_temp_idx ON distributors (dist_id);
ALTER TABLE distributors DROP CONSTRAINT distributors_pkey,
ADD CONSTRAINT distributors_pkey PRIMARY KEY USING INDEX dist_id_temp_idx;
COMPATIBILITY
The forms ADD (without USING INDEX), DROP, SET DEFAULT, and SET DATA TYPE (without USING)
conform with the SQL standard. The other forms are PostgreSQL extensions of the SQL
standard. Also, the ability to specify more than one manipulation in a single ALTER TABLE
command is an extension.
ALTER TABLE DROP COLUMN can be used to drop the only column of a table, leaving a
zero-column table. This is an extension of SQL, which disallows zero-column tables.
SEE ALSO
CREATE TABLE (CREATE_TABLE(7))