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Check if a field exists

Author

Topic

Gyte
Starting Member

23 Posts

Posted - 2007-08-30 : 08:05:03

How can you check if a field in a table exists or not with SQL ?

I'm trying to add a field to a table with the following query :

ALTER TABLE Contact
ADD CountyCode nvarchar(10)

It doesn't however check if the field already exists or not.

SwePeso
Patron Saint of Lost Yaks

30421 Posts

Posted - 2007-08-30 : 08:11:19

[code]IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMN WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'Contact' AND COLUMN_NAME = 'CountyCode')
ALTER TABLE Contact
ADD CountyCode nvarchar(10)[/code]

E 12°55'05.25"
N 56°04'39.16"

madhivanan
Premature Yak Congratulator

22864 Posts

Posted - 2007-08-30 : 08:19:35

or

If col_length('table_name','column_name') is null
Alter table.......

Madhivanan

Failing to plan is Planning to fail

Kristen
Test

22859 Posts

Posted - 2007-08-30 : 09:12:41

Can you put ALTER TABLE in an IF? Or is it just CREATE TABLE that has to be at the top of a statement block?

(Can be got round with EXEC 'ALTER TABLE ...' of course ...)

Kristen

rcurrey
Starting Member

30 Posts

Posted - 2007-08-30 : 11:56:24

Yes you can have an alter table add column inside the if statement.

Thanks,
Rich

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