EN
MySQL - add column to existing table
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In this article, we would like to show you how to add a column to an existing table in MySQL.
Quick solution:
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ALTER TABLE `table_name`
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ADD `column_name` DATA_TYPE;
Note:
Go to the official documentation to see what you can use as
DATA_TYPE
.
To add columns to an existing table we use ALTER TABLE
statement.
To show how to add a column to an existing table using ALTER TABLE
statement, we will use the following table:

Note:
At the end of this article you can find database preparation SQL queries.
In this example, we will add email
column to the users
table.
Query:
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ALTER TABLE `users`
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ADD `email` VARCHAR(255);
Output (SELECT * FROM `users`
):

create_tables.sql
file:
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CREATE TABLE `users` (
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`id` INT(10) UNSIGNED NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT,
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`name` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
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`surname` VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL,
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`department_id` INT(10) UNSIGNED,
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`salary` DECIMAL(15,2) NOT NULL,
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PRIMARY KEY (`id`)
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);
insert_data.sql
file:
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INSERT INTO `users`
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( `name`, `surname`, `department_id`, `salary`)
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VALUES
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('John', 'Stewart', 1, '3512.00'),
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('Chris', 'Brown', 2, '1344.00'),
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('Kate', 'Lewis', 3, '6574.00'),
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('Ailisa', 'Gomez', NULL, '6500.00'),
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('Gwendolyn', 'James', 2, '4200.00'),
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('Simon', 'Collins', 4, '3320.00'),
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('Taylor', 'Martin', 2, '1500.00'),
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('Andrew', 'Thompson', NULL, '2100.00');