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ALTER INDEX

Name

ALTER INDEX -- change the definition of an index

Synopsis

ALTER INDEX name 
    action [, ... ]
ALTER INDEX name
    RENAME TO new_name

where action is one of:

    OWNER TO new_owner
    SET TABLESPACE indexspace_name

Description

ALTER INDEX changes the definition of an existing index. There are several subforms:

OWNER

This form changes the owner of the index to the specified user. This can only be done by a superuser.

SET TABLESPACE

This form changes the index's tablespace to the specified tablespace and moves the data file(s) associated with the index to the new tablespace. See also CREATE TABLESPACE.

RENAME

The RENAME form changes the name of the index. There is no effect on the stored data.

All the actions except RENAME can be combined into a list of multiple alterations to apply in parallel.

Parameters

name

The name (possibly schema-qualified) of an existing index to alter.

new_name

New name for the index.

new_owner

The user name of the new owner of the index.

tablespace_name

The tablespace name to which the index will be moved.

Notes

These operations are also possible using ALTER TABLE. ALTER INDEX is in fact just an alias for the forms of ALTER TABLE that apply to indexes.

Changing any part of a system catalog index is not permitted.

Examples

To rename an existing index: 

ALTER INDEX distributors RENAME TO suppliers;

To move a index to a different tablespace: 

ALTER INDEX distributors SET TABLESPACE fasttablespace;

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