How to rename a table in SQL Server?

Question

The SQL query that I have used is :

ALTER TABLE oldtable RENAME TO newtable;

But, it gives me an error.

Answer 1

If you try exec sp_rename and receieve a LockMatchID error then it might help to add a use [database] statement first:

I tried

 exec sp_rename '[database_name].[dbo].[table_name]', 'new_table_name';
 -- Invalid EXECUTE statement using object "Object", method "LockMatchID".

What I had to do to fix it was to rewrite it to:

use database_name
exec sp_rename '[dbo].[table_name]', 'new_table_name';