Supported Versions: Current (16) / 15 / 14 / 13 / 12
Development Versions: devel
Unsupported versions: 11 / 10 / 9.6 / 9.5 / 9.4 / 9.3 / 9.2 / 9.1
This documentation is for an unsupported version of PostgreSQL.
You may want to view the same page for the current version, or one of the other supported versions listed above instead.

ALTER FOREIGN TABLE

Name

ALTER FOREIGN TABLE -- change the definition of a foreign table

Synopsis

ALTER FOREIGN TABLE name
    action [, ... ]
ALTER FOREIGN TABLE name
    RENAME [ COLUMN ] column TO new_column
ALTER FOREIGN TABLE name
    RENAME TO new_name
ALTER FOREIGN TABLE name
    SET SCHEMA new_schema

where action is one of:

    ADD [ COLUMN ] column type [ NULL | NOT NULL ]
    DROP [ COLUMN ] [ IF EXISTS ] column [ RESTRICT | CASCADE ]
    ALTER [ COLUMN ] column [ SET DATA ] TYPE type
    ALTER [ COLUMN ] column { SET | DROP } NOT NULL
    OWNER TO new_owner
    OPTIONS ( [ ADD | SET | DROP ] option ['value'] [, ... ])

Description

ALTER FOREIGN TABLE changes the definition of an existing foreign table. There are several subforms:

ADD COLUMN

This form adds a new column to the foreign table, using the same syntax as CREATE FOREIGN TABLE.

DROP COLUMN [ IF EXISTS ]

This form drops a column from a foreign table. You will need to say CASCADE if anything outside the table depends on the column; for example, views. If IF EXISTS is specified and the column does not exist, no error is thrown. In this case a notice is issued instead.

SET DATA TYPE

This form changes the type of a column of a foreign table.

SET/DROP NOT NULL

Mark a column as allowing, or not allowing, null values.

OWNER

This form changes the owner of the foreign table to the specified user.

RENAME

The RENAME forms change the name of a foreign table or the name of an individual column in a foreign table.

SET SCHEMA

This form moves the foreign table into another schema.

OPTIONS ( [ ADD | SET | DROP ] option ['value'] [, ... ] )

Change options for the foreign table. ADD, SET, and DROP specify the action to be performed. ADD is assumed if no operation is explicitly specified. Option names must be unique; names and values are also validated using the foreign data wrapper library.

All the actions except RENAME and SET SCHEMA can be combined into a list of multiple alterations to apply in parallel. For example, it is possible to add several columns and/or alter the type of several columns in a single command.

You must own the table to use ALTER FOREIGN TABLE. To change the schema of a foreign table, you must also have CREATE privilege on the new schema. To alter the owner, you must also be a direct or indirect member of the new owning role, and that role must have CREATE privilege on the table's schema. (These restrictions enforce that altering the owner doesn't do anything you couldn't do by dropping and recreating the table. However, a superuser can alter ownership of any table anyway.)

Parameters

name

The name (possibly schema-qualified) of an existing foreign table to alter.

column

Name of a new or existing column.

new_column

New name for an existing column.

new_name

New name for the table.

type

Data type of the new column, or new data type for an existing column.

CASCADE

Automatically drop objects that depend on the dropped column (for example, views referencing the column).

RESTRICT

Refuse to drop the column if there are any dependent objects. This is the default behavior.

new_owner

The user name of the new owner of the table.

new_schema

The name of the schema to which the table will be moved.

Notes

The key word COLUMN is noise and can be omitted.

Consistency with the foreign server is not checked when a column is added or removed with ADD COLUMN or DROP COLUMN, a NOT NULL constraint is added, or a column type is changed with SET DATA TYPE. It is the user's responsibility to ensure that the table definition matches the remote side.

Refer to CREATE FOREIGN TABLE for a further description of valid parameters.

Examples

To mark a column as not-null:

ALTER FOREIGN TABLE distributors ALTER COLUMN street SET NOT NULL;

To change options of a foreign table:

ALTER FOREIGN TABLE myschema.distributors OPTIONS (ADD opt1 'value', SET opt2, 'value2', DROP opt3 'value3');

Compatibility

The forms ADD, DROP, and SET DATA TYPE conform with the SQL standard. The other forms are PostgreSQL extensions of the SQL standard. Also, the ability to specify more than one manipulation in a single ALTER FOREIGN TABLE command is an extension.

ALTER FOREIGN TABLE DROP COLUMN can be used to drop the only column of a foreign table, leaving a zero-column table. This is an extension of SQL, which disallows zero-column foreign tables.