MySQL: How to add a column if it doesn't already exist?

Andrew picture Andrew · Jul 14, 2010 · Viewed 28.3k times · Source

I want to add a column to a table, but I don't want it to fail if it has already been added to the table. How can I achieve this?

# Add column fails if it already exists 
ALTER TABLE `TableName` ADD `ColumnName` int(1) NOT NULL default '0';

Answer

OMG Ponies picture OMG Ponies · Jul 14, 2010

Use the following in a stored procedure:

IF NOT EXISTS( SELECT NULL
            FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
           WHERE table_name = 'tablename'
             AND table_schema = 'db_name'
             AND column_name = 'columnname')  THEN

  ALTER TABLE `TableName` ADD `ColumnName` int(1) NOT NULL default '0';

END IF;

Reference: