---
sidebar_label: Table
title: Table
description: create super table, normal table and sub table, drop tables and change tables
---

## Create Table

```
CREATE TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tb_name (timestamp_field_name TIMESTAMP, field1_name data_type1 [, field2_name data_type2 ...]);
```

:::info

1. The first column of a table MUST be of type TIMESTAMP. It is automatically set as the primary key.
2. The maximum length of the table name is 192 bytes.
3. The maximum length of each row is 16k bytes, please note that the extra 2 bytes used by each BINARY/NCHAR column are also counted.
4. The name of the subtable can only consist of characters from the English alphabet, digits and underscore. Table names can't start with a digit. Table names are case insensitive.
5. The maximum length in bytes must be specified when using BINARY or NCHAR types.
6. Escape character "\`" can be used to avoid the conflict between table names and reserved keywords, above rules will be bypassed when using escape character on table names, but the upper limit for the name length is still valid. The table names specified using escape character are case sensitive. Only ASCII visible characters can be used with escape character.
   For example \`aBc\` and \`abc\` are different table names but `abc` and `aBc` are same table names because they are both converted to `abc` internally.

:::

### Create Subtable Using STable As Template

```
CREATE TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tb_name USING stb_name TAGS (tag_value1, ...);
```

The above command creates a subtable using the specified super table as a template and the specified tag values.

### Create Subtable Using STable As Template With A Subset of Tags

```
CREATE TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tb_name USING stb_name (tag_name1, ...) TAGS (tag_value1, ...);
```

The tags for which no value is specified will be set to NULL.

### Create Tables in Batch

```
CREATE TABLE [IF NOT EXISTS] tb_name1 USING stb_name TAGS (tag_value1, ...) [IF NOT EXISTS] tb_name2 USING stb_name TAGS (tag_value2, ...) ...;
```

This can be used to create a lot of tables in a single SQL statement while making table creation much faster.

:::info

- Creating tables in batch must use a super table as a template.
- The length of single statement is suggested to be between 1,000 and 3,000 bytes for best performance.

:::

## Drop Tables

```
DROP TABLE [IF EXISTS] tb_name;
```

## Show All Tables In Current Database

```
SHOW TABLES [LIKE tb_name_wildcard];
```

## Show Create Statement of A Table

```
SHOW CREATE TABLE tb_name;
```

This is useful when migrating the data in one TDengine cluster to another one because it can be used to create the exact same tables in the target database.

## Show Table Definition

```
DESCRIBE tb_name;
```

## Change Table Definition

### Add A Column

```
ALTER TABLE tb_name ADD COLUMN field_name data_type;
```

:::info

1. The maximum number of columns is 4096, the minimum number of columns is 2.
2. The maximum length of a column name is 64 bytes.

:::

### Remove A Column

```
ALTER TABLE tb_name DROP COLUMN field_name;
```

:::note
If a table is created using a super table as template, the table definition can only be changed on the corresponding super table, and the change will be automatically applied to all the subtables created using this super table as template. For tables created in the normal way, the table definition can be changed directly on the table.

:::

### Change Column Length

```
ALTER TABLE tb_name MODIFY COLUMN field_name data_type(length);
```

If the type of a column is variable length, like BINARY or NCHAR, this command can be used to change the length of the column.

:::note
If a table is created using a super table as template, the table definition can only be changed on the corresponding super table, and the change will be automatically applied to all the subtables created using this super table as template. For tables created in the normal way, the table definition can be changed directly on the table.

:::

### Change Tag Value Of Sub Table

```
ALTER TABLE tb_name SET TAG tag_name=new_tag_value;
```

This command can be used to change the tag value if the table is created using a super table as template.
