Replacing an existing table

  • Say I have a table, lets call it "Table1", and I discover that I am missing some key info, i want to reimport it from an external source. But I would prefer to keep the original table, at least for a week or so.

    Now the question is, what is the best way to replace the table without messing up any relationships and stored procedures?

    If I import the table again into a new table and call it "Table1b", and then rename the original table "table1a", and then rename "table1b" to "table1", will that be ok?

    Here are the steps:

    Step 1: Import the table again as "Table1b"

    Step 2: Rename Table1 as "Table1a"

    Step 3: Rename the newly imported table (Table1b) as "Table1", thus replacing the original table.

    I would imagine that the stored procedures would be ok, but maybe the relationships would need to be re-established?

  • I'm pretty sure that will mess up your relationships since they use the table ID, not the name.

    The stored procedures use the name so they should be ok.



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  • You would need to rebuild the relationships. They would remain pointing to the first table regardless of the name of the table.

    I'd generate the drop and create scripts before doing the new import. Drop the constraints on the original table, rename both tables and then run the create scripts against the new table to re-establish the relationships.

    Jack Corbett
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  • You could also look into importing the fresh data into a new table and updating table1 based on table2.

    If that's not possible, then follow Jack's advice.

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