Note

This documentation is for a prior release of Kinetica. For the latest documentation, click here.

/alter/table/columns

URL: http://<db.host>:<db.port>/alter/table/columns

Apply various modifications to columns in a table, view. The available modifications include the following:

Create or delete an index on a particular column. This can speed up certain operations when using expressions containing equality or relational operators on indexed columns. This only applies to tables.

Manage a table's columns--a column can be added, removed, or have its type and properties modified, including whether it is dictionary encoded or not.

Input Parameter Description

Name	Type	Description
table_name	string	Table on which the operation will be performed. Must be an existing table or view, in [schema_name.]table_name format, using standard name resolution rules.
column_alterations	array of maps of string to strings	List of alter table add/delete/change column requests - all for the same table. Each request is a map that includes 'column_name', 'action' and the options specific for the action. Note that the same options as in alter table requests but in the same map as the column name and the action. For example: [{'column_name':'col_1','action':'change_column','rename_column':'col_2'},{'column_name':'col_1','action':'add_column', 'type':'int','default_value':'1'}]
options	map of string to strings	Optional parameters.

Output Parameter Description

The GPUdb server embeds the endpoint response inside a standard response structure which contains status information and the actual response to the query. Here is a description of the various fields of the wrapper:

Name

Type

Description

status

String

'OK' or 'ERROR'

message

String

Empty if success or an error message

data_type

String

'alter_table_columns_response' or 'none' in case of an error

data

String

Empty string

data_str

JSON or String

This embedded JSON represents the result of the /alter/table/columns endpoint:

Name	Type	Description
table_name	string	Table on which the operation was performed.
type_id	string	return the type_id (when changing a table, a new type may be created)
type_definition	string	return the type_definition (when changing a table, a new type may be created)
properties	map of string to arrays of strings	return the type properties (when changing a table, a new type may be created)
label	string	return the type label (when changing a table, a new type may be created)
column_alterations	array of maps of string to strings	List of alter table add/delete/change column requests - all for the same table. Each request is a map that includes 'column_name', 'action' and the options specific for the action. Note that the same options as in alter table requests but in the same map as the column name and the action. For example: [{'column_name':'col_1','action':'change_column','rename_column':'col_2'},{'column_name':'col_1','action':'add_column', 'type':'int','default_value':'1'}]
info	map of string to strings	Additional information.

Empty string in case of an error.