MySQL/Language/Table manipulation

CREATE TABLE

Create table syntax is: Create table tablename (FieldName1 DataType,
FieldName2 DataType)

The rows returned by the "select" query can be saved as a new table. The datatype will be the same as the old table. For e.g. CREATE TABLE LearnHindi
select english.tag, english.Inenglish as english, hindi.Inhindi as hindi
FROM english, hindi
WHERE english.tag = hindi.tag

ALTER TABLE

ALTER TABLE command can be used when you want to add / delete /modify the columns and / or the indexes; or, it can be used to change other table properties.

Add a column:

ALTER TABLE awards
ADD COLUMN AwardCode int(2)

Modify a column:

ALTER TABLE awards
CHANGE COLUMN AwardCode VARCHAR(2) NOT NULL

ALTER TABLE awards
MODIFY COLUMN AwardCode VARCHAR(2) NOT NULL

Drop a column:

ALTER TABLE awards
DROP COLUMN AwardCode

Re-order the record in a table:

ALTER TABLE awards ORDER BY id

(this operation is only supported by some Storage Engines; it could make some query faster)

Renaming a table

In order to rename a table, you must have ALTER and DROP privileges on the old table name (or on all the tables), and CREATE and INSERT privileges on the new table name (or on all the tables).

You can use ALTER TABLE to rename a table:

RENAME TABLE `old_name` TO `new_name`

You can rename more than one table with a single command:

RENAME TABLE `old1` TO `new1`, `old2` TO `new2`, ...

RENAME is a shortcut. You can also use the ALTER TABLE statement:

ALTER TABLE `old` RENAME `new`

Using ALTER TABLE you can only rename one table per statement, but it's the only way to rename temporary tables.

DROP TABLE

DROP TABLE `awards`

Will completely delete the table and all the records it contains.

You can also drop more than one table with a single statement:

DROP TABLE `table1`, `table2`, ...

There are come optional keywords:

DROP TEMPORARY TABLE `table`;
DROP TABLE `table` IF EXISTS;

TEMPORARY must be specified, to drop a temporary table. IF EXISTS tells the server that it must not raise an error if the table doesn't exist.