I tried the following but I got a syntax error
ALTER TABLE Grades (
DROP COLUMN (Student_FamilyName, Student_Name),
ADD Student_id INT );
Is it possible to perform a DROP
and an ADD
in the same ALTER TABLE
statement?
If you look at the ALTER TABLE SYTAX
you'll see this
ALTER TABLE [ database_name . [ schema_name ] . | schema_name . ] table_name
{
ALTER COLUMN column_name
{
[ type_schema_name. ] type_name [ ( { precision [ , scale ]
| max | xml_schema_collection } ) ]
[ COLLATE collation_name ]
[ NULL | NOT NULL ] [ SPARSE ]
| {ADD | DROP }
{ ROWGUIDCOL | PERSISTED | NOT FOR REPLICATION | SPARSE }
}
| [ WITH { CHECK | NOCHECK } ]
| ADD
{
<column_definition>
| <computed_column_definition>
| <table_constraint>
| <column_set_definition>
} [ ,...n ]
| DROP
{
[ CONSTRAINT ]
{
constraint_name
[ WITH
( <drop_clustered_constraint_option> [ ,...n ] )
]
} [ ,...n ]
| COLUMN
{
column_name
} [ ,...n ]
} [ ,...n ]
This can be reduced to
ALTER TABLE { ALTER COLUMN column_name | ADD | DROP }
According to Transact-SQL Syntax Conventions (Transact-SQL) the | (vertical bar)
Separates syntax items enclosed in brackets or braces. You can use only one of the items.
So you can't Alter, Drop or Add in a single statement. You also have the parens and comma that won't work. So you'll need
ALTER TABLE Grades DROP COLUMN (Student_FamilyName, Student_Name);
ALTER TABLE Grades ADD Student_id INT;
If you need them to be an atomic action you just need to wrap in transaction