Change column name and data type in Sql Server

How to change column name and data type of a column cannot be done in one statement but first we need to change the column name and then data type, In this post we will check many other things like how to change data type of a column, how to drop a column, how to add a new column, how to make a column not nullable etc.

So first we will see how to change a column name as well as data type of the column, as I said we cannot do it in one statement but we first need to change the column name and then data type so let's see this:

Suppose we want to change the column "BlogTypeID" to "Tags" from data type int to varchar(200) in Blogs table then

-- change column name BlogTypeID to Tags    
EXEC sp_rename 'blogs.BlogTypeID', 'Tags', 'COLUMN'    

Once we will run this query we will get a warning "Caution: Changing any part of an object name could break scripts and stored procedures. It indicates that our existing procedures may break but our column name is changes, check the table.

Now we will alter the column data type

ALTER TABLE Blogs
ALTER COLUMN Tags VARCHAR(200)

Now our task is completed to change column and column data type.

How to add a new column in a table

ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD column_name datatype

To change the datatype to support 100 characters and make NOT NULL

ALTER TABLE table_name
ALTER COLUMN column_name VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL

To change datatype and allow NULLs for column

ALTER TABLE table_name
ALTER COLUMN column_name DATETIME NULL

To drop a column from a table

ALTER TABLE table_name
DROP COLUMN column_name   
Hamden Process manager with a reputed organization, Fond of learning new features and technology related to C#, ASP.Net, SQL Server, MVC etc.I like to help others, if I can
  • sql server
By Hamden On 05 May, 13  Viewed: 5,932

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