MySQL Alter syntax to drop a column if it exists

Question

What is the syntax to drop a column in a MySQL table, if that column exists on version 4.0.18?

Answer 1

There is none: MySQL Feature Request. Simply check for existence first in the client or catch the error.

Answer 2

There is no language level support for this in MySQL. Here is a work-around involving MySQL information_schema meta-data in 5.0+, but it won't address your issue in 4.0.18.

drop procedure if exists schema_change;

delimiter ';;'
create procedure schema_change() begin

    /* delete columns if they exist */
    if exists (select * from information_schema.columns where table_name = 'table1' and column_name = 'column1') then
        alter table table1 drop column `column1`;
    end if;
    if exists (select * from information_schema.columns where table_name = 'table1' and column_name = 'column2') then
        alter table table1 drop column `column2`;
    end if;

    /* add columns */
    alter table table1 add column `column1` varchar(255) NULL;
    alter table table1 add column `column2` varchar(255) NULL;

end;;

delimiter ';'
call schema_change();

drop procedure if exists schema_change;

I wrote some more detailed information in a blog post.

Answer 3

Chase Seibert's answer works, but I'd add that if you have several schemata you want to alter the SELECT thus:

select * from information_schema.columns where table_schema in (select schema()) and table_name=...