Alter table command vs table copy/rename

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Hi,

Does anyone know what the pros and cons are of doing an alter table
statement rather than copy/rename table method to make table changes? For
years now, we have a product where the way they make schema changes is by
copying the table, rebuilding a table with the change like adding a new
column, bring the data back in, and then renaming the table back to the
original name. They were told that altering the table causes a roll through
all of the rows in a table once for each new column being added to the table
and that this is extremely slow. It seems that it's better to do an alter
table statement rather than the copy/rename method.

Thanks,
Dee
.

Relevant Pages

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