Question

I need to write some code for renaming a column in SQL Server 2008.
When scripting that in Management Studio I got a double renaming :

NAME1 ==> TEMPNAME ==> NAME2

BEGIN TRANSACTION
GO
EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.Table_1.columFirstName', N'Tmp_columSecondName_2', 'COLUMN' 
GO
EXECUTE sp_rename N'dbo.Table_1.Tmp_columSecondName_2', N'columSecondName', 'COLUMN' 
GO
ALTER TABLE dbo.Table_1 SET (LOCK_ESCALATION = TABLE)
GO
COMMIT

But when I do it in one go, It works just fine.

Why the column first is renamed to a temporary name? Does it makes sense when coding a renaming algoritm to do the same?

Thanks!

Answer 1

You can swap column names between two columns. Management studio supports that by renaming all columns to temporary names, and then renaming them to the final names.

Blorgbeard: In the Design Window right-click menu, there is a generate change script choice.