CREATE TABLE

This statement creates a new table in the currently selected database. It behaves similarly to the CREATE TABLE statement in MySQL.

Synopsis

CreateTableStmt ::=
    'CREATE' OptTemporary 'TABLE' IfNotExists TableName ( TableElementListOpt CreateTableOptionListOpt PartitionOpt DuplicateOpt AsOpt CreateTableSelectOpt | LikeTableWithOrWithoutParen )

IfNotExists ::=
    ('IF' 'NOT' 'EXISTS')?

TableName ::=
    Identifier ('.' Identifier)?

TableElementListOpt ::=
    ( '(' TableElementList ')' )?

TableElementList ::=
    TableElement ( ',' TableElement )*

TableElement ::=
    ColumnDef
|   Constraint

ColumnDef ::=
    ColumnName ( Type | 'SERIAL' ) ColumnOptionListOpt

ColumnOptionListOpt ::=
    ColumnOption*

ColumnOptionList ::=
    ColumnOption*

ColumnOption ::=
    'NOT'? 'NULL'
|   'AUTO_INCREMENT'
|   PrimaryOpt 'KEY'
|   'UNIQUE' 'KEY'?
|   'DEFAULT' DefaultValueExpr
|   'SERIAL' 'DEFAULT' 'VALUE'
|   'ON' 'UPDATE' NowSymOptionFraction
|   'COMMENT' stringLit
|   ConstraintKeywordOpt 'CHECK' '(' Expression ')' EnforcedOrNotOrNotNullOpt
|   GeneratedAlways 'AS' '(' Expression ')' VirtualOrStored
|   ReferDef
|   'COLLATE' CollationName
|   'COLUMN_FORMAT' ColumnFormat
|   'STORAGE' StorageMedia
|   'AUTO_RANDOM' OptFieldLen

CreateTableOptionListOpt ::=
    TableOptionList?

PartitionOpt ::=
    ( 'PARTITION' 'BY' PartitionMethod PartitionNumOpt SubPartitionOpt PartitionDefinitionListOpt )?

DuplicateOpt ::=
    ( 'IGNORE' | 'REPLACE' )?

TableOptionList ::=
    TableOption ( ','? TableOption )*

TableOption ::=
    PartDefOption
|   DefaultKwdOpt ( CharsetKw EqOpt CharsetName | 'COLLATE' EqOpt CollationName )
|   ( 'AUTO_INCREMENT' | 'AUTO_ID_CACHE' | 'AUTO_RANDOM_BASE' | 'AVG_ROW_LENGTH' | 'CHECKSUM' | 'TABLE_CHECKSUM' | 'KEY_BLOCK_SIZE' | 'DELAY_KEY_WRITE' | 'SHARD_ROW_ID_BITS' | 'PRE_SPLIT_REGIONS' ) EqOpt LengthNum
|   ( 'CONNECTION' | 'PASSWORD' | 'COMPRESSION' ) EqOpt stringLit
|   RowFormat
|   ( 'STATS_PERSISTENT' | 'PACK_KEYS' ) EqOpt StatsPersistentVal
|   ( 'STATS_AUTO_RECALC' | 'STATS_SAMPLE_PAGES' ) EqOpt ( LengthNum | 'DEFAULT' )
|   'STORAGE' ( 'MEMORY' | 'DISK' )
|   'SECONDARY_ENGINE' EqOpt ( 'NULL' | StringName )
|   'UNION' EqOpt '(' TableNameListOpt ')'
|   'ENCRYPTION' EqOpt EncryptionOpt

The following table_options are supported. Other options such as AVG_ROW_LENGTH, CHECKSUM, COMPRESSION, CONNECTION, DELAY_KEY_WRITE, ENGINE, KEY_BLOCK_SIZE, MAX_ROWS, MIN_ROWS, ROW_FORMAT and STATS_PERSISTENT are parsed but ignored.

Examples

Creating a simple table and inserting one row:

CREATE TABLE t1 (a int);
DESC t1;
SHOW CREATE TABLE t1\G
INSERT INTO t1 (a) VALUES (1);
SELECT * FROM t1;

mysql> drop table if exists t1;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.23 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE t1 (a int);
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.09 sec)

mysql> DESC t1;
+-------+---------+------+------+---------+-------+
| Field | Type    | Null | Key  | Default | Extra |
+-------+---------+------+------+---------+-------+
| a     | int(11) | YES  |      | NULL    |       |
+-------+---------+------+------+---------+-------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW CREATE TABLE t1\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
       Table: t1
Create Table: CREATE TABLE `t1` (
  `a` int(11) DEFAULT NULL
) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8mb4 COLLATE=utf8mb4_bin
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

mysql> INSERT INTO t1 (a) VALUES (1);
Query OK, 1 row affected (0.03 sec)

mysql> SELECT * FROM t1;
+------+
| a    |
+------+
|    1 |
+------+
1 row in set (0.00 sec)

Dropping a table if it exists, and conditionally creating a table if it does not exist:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS t1;
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS t1 (
 id BIGINT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY auto_increment,
 b VARCHAR(200) NOT NULL
);
DESC t1;

mysql> DROP TABLE IF EXISTS t1;
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.22 sec)

mysql> CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS t1 (
    ->  id BIGINT NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY auto_increment,
    ->  b VARCHAR(200) NOT NULL
    -> );
Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.08 sec)

mysql> DESC t1;
+-------+--------------+------+------+---------+----------------+
| Field | Type         | Null | Key  | Default | Extra          |
+-------+--------------+------+------+---------+----------------+
| id    | bigint(20)   | NO   | PRI  | NULL    | auto_increment |
| b     | varchar(200) | NO   |      | NULL    |                |
+-------+--------------+------+------+---------+----------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

MySQL compatibility

• TiDB does not support temporary tables. The CREATE TEMPORARY TABLE syntax will raise an error if tidb_enable_noop_functions = 0; TiDB simply ignores the TEMPORARY keyword if tidb_enable_noop_functions = 1.
• All of the data types except spatial types are supported.
• FULLTEXT, HASH and SPATIAL indexes are not supported.
• For compatibility, the index_col_name attribute supports the length option with a maximum length limit of 3072 bytes by default. The length limit can be changed through the max-index-length configuration option. For details, see TiDB configuration file.
• The [ASC | DESC] in index_col_name is currently parsed but ignored (MySQL 5.7 compatible behavior).
• The COMMENT attribute supports a maximum of 1024 characters and does not support the WITH PARSER option.
• TiDB supports 1017 columns in a single table by default and 4096 columns at most. The corresponding number limit in InnoDB is 1017 columns, and the hard limit in MySQL is 4096 columns. For details, see TiDB Limitations.
• For partitioned tables, only Range, Hash and Range Columns (single column) are supported. For details, see partitioned table.
• CHECK constraints are parsed but ignored (MySQL 5.7 compatible behavior). For details, see Constraints.
• FOREIGN KEY constraints are parsed and stored, but not enforced by DML statements. For details, see Constraints.

See also

• Data Types
• DROP TABLE
• CREATE TABLE LIKE
• SHOW CREATE TABLE