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sqlgoogle-bigquery

Google BigQuery: how to create a new column with SQL

I would like to add an column to an already existing table without using legacy SQL.

The basic SQL syntax for this is:

ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD column_name datatype;

I formatted the query for Google BigQuery:

ALTER TABLE `projectID.datasetID.fooTable`
ADD (barColumn date);

But than the syntax is incorrect with this error:

Error: Syntax error: Expected "." or keyword SET but got identifier "ADD" at [1:63]

So how do I format the SQL properly for Google BigQuery?

Solution

  • Support for ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN was released on 2020-10-14 per BigQuery Release Notes.

    So the statement as originally proposed should now work with minimal modification:

    ALTER TABLE `projectID.datasetID.fooTable`
ADD COLUMN barColumn DATE;