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Specifying position of a new column in MySQL

schedule Aug 12, 2023
Last updated
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MySQL
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In MySQL you can specify the position of a new column using the FIRST / AFTER keywords.

Syntax

To add the new column as the first column:

ALTER TABLE table_name ADD COLUMN new_column datatype FIRST;

To add the new column after a particular column:

ALTER TABLE table_name ADD COLUMN new_column datatype AFTER existing_column_name;

Example

Consider the following table showing whether students hold a drivers license:

student_id

full_name

age

has_license

1

Sky Towner

17

0

2

Ben Davis

19

1

3

Travis Apple

18

0

4

Arthur David

16

0

5

Benjamin Town

17

1

The above sample table can be created using the code here.

To add a new column attempts as the first column:

ALTER TABLE drivers_license ADD COLUMN attempts INT FIRST;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.16 sec)
Records: 0 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0

To check that attempts has indeed been added as the first column:

DESCRIBE drivers_license;
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| attempts | int | YES | | NULL | |
| student_id | int unsigned | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
| full_name | varchar(30) | YES | | NULL | |
| age | int | YES | | NULL | |
| has_license | tinyint(1) | YES | | NULL | |
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+

If we were to add the new column attempts after the has_license column:

ALTER TABLE drivers_license ADD COLUMN attempts INT AFTER has_license;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.01 sec)
Records: 0 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0

To check that attempts has indeed been added after has_license:

DESCRIBE drivers_license;
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
| student_id | int unsigned | NO | PRI | NULL | auto_increment |
| full_name | varchar(30) | YES | | NULL | |
| age | int | YES | | NULL | |
| has_license | tinyint(1) | YES | | NULL | |
| attempts | int | YES | | NULL | |
+-------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+----------------+
robocat
Published by Arthur Yanagisawa
Edited by 0 others
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