How to Rename a Table in MySQL?

To rename a table, you can use the alter and rename commands. These will be demonstrated with the help of the following steps-

Firstly, create a table using the create command. This gives the following-

mysql> CREATE table Employee
　　　-> (
　　　-> EmpId int,
　　　-> EmpName varchar(200)
　　　-> );

The syntax for changing the table name is as follows:

> alter table yourtableName rename toYourNewtableName;

The above syntax is used to change the table name by the following query:

mysql> alter table Employee rename to EmployeeTable;

Since the table name has been changed, use the SELECT statement to check if the renaming operation was successful. The query for this is as follows-

mysql> SELECT　*　from Employee;
ERROR　1146　(42S02): Table 'business.employee' doesn't exist

The above query returns an error because there is no longer a table named Employee. The name has been changed to EmployeeTable.

Execute the above query again using the table name 'EmployeeTable'. It is shown as follows-

mysql> SELECT　*　from EmployeeTable;
Empty set (0.00 sec)

Now, there are no errors in the above query because the table name Employee has been changed to EmployeeTable.