Question

I created a table and accidentally created a column with the name DATE(FROM_UNIXTIME(email_sends.created_ts))

I am unable to select this column to rename it since it uses protected characters. Basically, I am asking for the proper way to escape this column name in mysql so that I can change it.

Answer 1

Use backticks to quote identifiers that contain special characters. As stated in the manual:

An identifier may be quoted or unquoted. If an identifier contains special characters or is a reserved word, you must quote it whenever you refer to it.

[…]

The identifier quote character is the backtick (“`”)

Therefore, you can do something similar to:

ALTER TABLE foo CHANGE `DATE(FROM_UNIXTIME(email_sends.created_ts))` newname DATE;