How to Delete a Column in SQL

Problem

You want to remove a column from a table.

Example

We would like to delete the column description from the table product.

Solution

ALTER TABLE product
DROP COLUMN description;

Discussion

SQL provides the ALTER TABLE statement to change the structure of a table. If you’d like to remove a column from a table, use this statement.

First, write ALTER TABLE, followed by the name of the table you want to change (in our example, product). Next add the DROP COLUMN clause, followed by the name of the column you want to remove (in our example, description). This removes the column from the table, including any data stored in it.