When developing a new system or software you will often find yourself unsure on the proper naming schema to utilize, or you may find out you need to comply with a company’s standard nomenclature. When this happens you may want to take note of the sp_rename stored procedure available in Sybase. This procedure allows you to rename a table, column, or index object be forewarned though that renaming a table can break stored procedures or queries that utilize the table and they will need to be updated appropriately.

Renaming a Database Table with sp_rename

To rename a table all you need to do is execute the procedure passing the name of the table to be modified and the new name for the table.

exec sp_rename MY_TABLE_OLD, MY_TABLE_NEW

Renaming a Table Column with sp_rename

To rename a column you need to specify the table and column in the first parameter and then in the 2nd parameter only put the new name of the column.

exec sp_rename MY_TABLE_NEW.old_id, new_id

Renaming a Table Index with sp_rename

To rename an index you need to specify the table and index in the first parameter and then in the 2nd parameter only put the new name of the index.

exec sp_rename MY_TABLE_NEW.id_idx, new_id_idx

It is important to note that if you have a column and index with the same name for a table you can specify a third parameter saying that you want to rename the index or column

exec sp_rename MY_TABLE_NEW.client_id, new_client_id, "index"

Resources

• Sybase Online : sp_rename function reference