Add an empty column

Manually add an empty column.

Explore further

For detailed documentation that includes this code sample, see the following:

• Modifying table schemas

Code sample

Go

Before trying this sample, follow the Go setup instructions in the BigQuery quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the BigQuery Go API reference documentation.

To authenticate to BigQuery, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"

	"cloud.google.com/go/bigquery"
)

// updateTableAddColumn demonstrates modifying the schema of a table to append an additional column.
func updateTableAddColumn(projectID, datasetID, tableID string) error {
	// projectID := "my-project-id"
	// datasetID := "mydataset"
	// tableID := "mytable"
	ctx := context.Background()
	client, err := bigquery.NewClient(ctx, projectID)
	if err != nil {
		return fmt.Errorf("bigquery.NewClient: %w", err)
	}
	defer client.Close()

	tableRef := client.Dataset(datasetID).Table(tableID)
	meta, err := tableRef.Metadata(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return err
	}
	newSchema := append(meta.Schema,
		&bigquery.FieldSchema{Name: "phone", Type: bigquery.StringFieldType},
	)
	update := bigquery.TableMetadataToUpdate{
		Schema: newSchema,
	}
	if _, err := tableRef.Update(ctx, update, meta.ETag); err != nil {
		return err
	}
	return nil
}

Java

Before trying this sample, follow the Java setup instructions in the BigQuery quickstart using client libraries. For more information, see the BigQuery Java API reference documentation.

To authenticate to BigQuery, set up Application Default Credentials. For more information, see Set up authentication for client libraries.

import com.google.cloud.bigquery.BigQuery;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.BigQueryException;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.BigQueryOptions;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.Field;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.FieldList;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.LegacySQLTypeName;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.Schema;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.StandardTableDefinition;
import com.google.cloud.bigquery.Table;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;

public class AddEmptyColumn {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    // TODO(developer): Replace these variables before running the sample.
    String datasetName = "MY_DATASET_NAME";
    String tableId = "MY_TABLE_NAME";
    String newColumnName = "NEW_COLUMN_NAME";
    addEmptyColumn(newColumnName, datasetName, tableId);
  }

  public static void addEmptyColumn(String newColumnName, String datasetName, String tableId) {
    try {
      // Initialize client that will be used to send requests. This client only needs to be created
      // once, and can be reused for multiple requests.
      BigQuery bigquery = BigQueryOptions.getDefaultInstance().getService();

      Table table = bigquery.getTable(datasetName, tableId);
      Schema schema = table.getDefinition().getSchema();
      FieldList fields = schema.getFields();

      // Create the new field/column
      Field newField = Field.of(newColumnName, LegacySQLTypeName.STRING);

      // Create a new schema adding the current fields, plus the new one
      List<Field> fieldList = new ArrayList<Field>();
      fields.forEach(fieldList::add);
      fieldList.add(newField);
      Schema newSchema = Schema.of(fieldList);

      // Update the table with the new schema
      Table updatedTable =
          table.toBuilder().setDefinition(StandardTableDefinition.of(newSchema)).build();
      updatedTable.update();
      System.out.println("Empty column successfully added to table");
    } catch (BigQueryException e) {
      System.out.println("Empty column was not added. \n" + e.toString());
    }
  }
}

What's next

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