MS SQL Server - Create view if not exist

In this article, we would like to show you how to create a view if it doesn't already exist in MS SQL Server.

Quick solution:

CREATE VIEW IF NOT EXISTS [view_name] AS
SELECT [column1], [column2], ...
FROM [table_name]
WHERE condition;

Practical example

To show how the CREATE VIEW IF NOT EXIST statement works, we will use the following table:

Note:

At the end of this article you can find database preparation SQL queries.

Example

In this example, we will create a view that shows all users from Spain if it doesn't already exist.

Query:

CREATE VIEW IF NOT EXISTS [Spain Users] AS
SELECT [name], [email]
FROM [users]
WHERE [country] = 'Spain';

To see the view created with the query above simply use:

SELECT * FROM [Spain Users];

Result:

Database preparation

create_tables.sql file:

CREATE TABLE [users] (
	[id] INT IDENTITY(1,1),
	[name] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	[email] VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
	[country] VARCHAR(15) NOT NULL,
	PRIMARY KEY ([id])
);

insert_data.sql file:

INSERT INTO [users]
	([name], [email], [country])
VALUES
	('Tom', 'tom01@email.com', 'Poland'),
	('Chris','chris123@email.com', 'Spain'),
	('Jack','jack32@email.com', 'Spain'),
   ('Kim','kim103@email.com', 'Vietnam'),
   ('Marco','marco942@email.com', 'Italy'),
	('Kate','kate227@email.com', 'Spain'),
	('Nam','nam393@email.com', 'Vietnam');