ALTER TABLE

[WilliamMute007]

Hi am back again with my troubles guys,

not sure how to go about this, I want to check if a name exist in a DB table if not, then insert a name into the DB prior to further updating it.

i.e

Select star from tablename;

 if { tablename.username = 'vee' DO  something }

else { Insert into tablename.username = 'username' 
}
[CODE]

How can I achieve such in SQL please? Thanks a bunch!

 

[r937]

please do a SHOW CREATE TABLE for this table

then show a couple of sample rows

then describe what you're trying to do with the INSERT

and where does the ALTER come into this? you're not really going to add a new column, are you?

r937.com | rudy.ca

 

[DonQuichote]

Look in the information_schema database. Write a procedure that queries the COLUMNS table, and if the field is not found, fire up your ALTER TABLE statement. The reason for this to put in a procedure is that IF statements can only occur in procedures. You can put a DROP PROCEDURE IF EXISTS clause in front of your procedure definition to make it repeatable.

+++ Despite being wrong in every important aspect, that is a very good analogy +++
Hex (in Darwin's Watch)

 

[WilliamMute007]

Thanks for all your contributions guys, I figured out that this will be a complicated process so I did it another way round though longer, but easier to archieve what I wanted.

Thanks for all your suggestions and help! appreciated...