Add a Column to a MySQL Table in Python

It may be sometimes required to add a new column in a existing table. Suppose we have a “Students” table with columns such as Name, Age, Roll no. We want to add a new column “Address” into our existing table.

This can be done by using the ALTER command. The ALTER command is used to modify, drop or update columns in the database. This can also be used to add a new column into the table using ADD clause.

Syntax

ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD new_column_name column_definition
[FIRST | AFTER exisiting_column]

Here, table_name refers to the name of the table, new_column_name refers to the name of the column to be added, column_definition refers to the datatype of the column.

The FIRST AND AFTER clause are optional.This are used to specify the particular position at which you want to add the new column. The FIRST will insert the new column at the first position. The AFTER existing_column will insert a new column after the existing_column.

By default, the new column is inserted at the end of the table.

Steps to add new column in a table using MySQL in python

• import MySQL connector

• establish connection with the connector using connect()

• create the cursor object using cursor() method

• create a query using the appropriate mysql statements

• execute the SQL query using execute() method

• close the connection

Example

Suppose, we have a table named “Students”. We want to add a new column named “Address” of type VARCHAR(100) in the table.

import mysql.connector
db=mysql.connector.connect(host="your host", user="your username", password="your
password",database="database_name")

cursor=db.cursor()

query="ALTER TABLE Students ADD Address VARCHAR(100)"
cursor.execute(query)
db.commit()
print("NEW COLUMN ADDED..")

db.close()

The above code adds a new column named “Address” into the table. The column is inserted at the last of the existing columns.

Output

NEW COLUMN ADDED..