Adds one or more columns to an existing table. When the optional PARTITION
syntax is used, updates partition metadata.
Synopsis
ALTER TABLE table_name
[PARTITION
(partition_col1_name = partition_col1_value
[,partition_col2_name = partition_col2_value][,...])]
ADD COLUMNS (col_name data_type)Parameters
- PARTITION (partition_col_name = partition_col_value [,...])
-
Creates a partition with the column name/value combinations that you specify. Enclose
partition_col_valuein quotation marks only if the data type of the column is a string. - ADD COLUMNS (col_name data_type [,col_name data_type,...])
-
Adds columns after existing columns but before partition columns.
Examples
ALTER TABLE events ADD COLUMNS (eventowner string)ALTER TABLE events PARTITION (awsregion='us-west-2') ADD COLUMNS (event string)ALTER TABLE events PARTITION (awsregion='us-west-2') ADD COLUMNS (eventdescription string)Notes
-
To see a new table column in the Athena Query Editor navigation pane after you run
ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMNS, manually refresh the table list in the editor, and then expand the table again. -
ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMNSdoes not work for columns with thedatedatatype. To workaround this issue, use thetimestampdatatype instead.
