The Alter Command for Redshift

Here I’ll just log all the scenarios where I had to use the alter command

Rename column

Syntax:

alter table <table_name>
rename column <old column name> to <new column name>

Change the datatype

Redshift only supports changing the size of the varchar column. Every other data type change you’ll need to look for a work around.

alter table <table_name> 
alter column <column_name> type varchar(<new size>);

Change the table name

Syntax:

alter table <table_name>
rename to <new_name>;

Sources:

• https://docs.aws.amazon.com/redshift/latest/dg/r_ALTER_TABLE_examples_basic.html
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17101918/alter-column-data-type-in-amazon-redshift
• https://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/171500/how-to-increase-column-size-in-redshift-database-tables