Mysql: RENAME TABLE IF EXISTS

Question

This DROP TABLE IF EXISTS works, too bad that RENAME TABLE IF EXISTS doesn\'t work.

Can anyone suggest a solution for this query?

Answer 1

There's no official solution yet. There has been feature request submitted in 2004, never closed

Answer 2

Eight years after your question, MariaDB added the exact syntax you want in version 10.5.2: https://mariadb.com/kb/en/rename-table/

IF EXISTS
^{MariaDB starting with 10.5.2}
If this is directive is used, one will not get an error if the table to be renamed doesn't exist.

Answer 3

If you don't want to keep variables you can do also this:

DELIMITER $$
IF EXISTS (SELECT *
                     FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES
                     WHERE TABLE_SCHEMA = database()
                     AND  TABLE_NAME = 'oldname')
THEN
    RENAME TABLE oldname to newname;
END if;
$$
DELIMITER ;

You can even further create a function if you want to reuse it

Answer 4

If you are familiar with PL/SQL, then you can check for existence of table by querying information_schema.columns and based on this perform rename

Answer 5

I've managed to execute a code that always works and generates no errors when the table doesn't exist:

SELECT Count(*)
INTO @exists
FROM information_schema.tables 
WHERE table_schema = [DATABASE_NAME]
    AND table_type = 'BASE TABLE'
    AND table_name = 'video_top_day';

SET @query = If(@exists>0,
    'RENAME TABLE video_top_day TO video_top_day_for_delete',
    'SELECT \'nothing to rename\' status');

PREPARE stmt FROM @query;

EXECUTE stmt;

When you don't want to replace [DATABASE NAME] manually you can use the following variable

SELECT DATABASE() INTO @db_name FROM DUAL;

Answer 6

create table table2 like table1;
insert into table2 select * from table1;
drop table table1;