Using ALTER to drop a column if it exists in MySQL

Question

How can ALTER be used to drop a column in a MySQL table if that column exists?

I know I can use ALTER TABLE my_table DROP COLUMN my_column, but that wi

Answer 1

I know this is an old thread, but there is a simple way to handle this requirement without using stored procedures. This may help someone.

set @exist_Check := (
    select count(*) from information_schema.columns 
    where TABLE_NAME='YOUR_TABLE' 
    and COLUMN_NAME='YOUR_COLUMN' 
    and TABLE_SCHEMA=database()
) ;
set @sqlstmt := if(@exist_Check>0,'alter table YOUR_TABLE drop column YOUR_COLUMN', 'select ''''') ;
prepare stmt from @sqlstmt ;
execute stmt ;

Hope this helps someone, as it did me (after a lot of trial and error).