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 ) OnCommitOpt

OptTemporary ::=
    ( 'TEMPORARY' | ('GLOBAL' 'TEMPORARY') )?

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' ( 'GLOBAL' | 'LOCAL' )?
|   'UNIQUE' 'KEY'? ( 'GLOBAL' | 'LOCAL' )?
|   '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

Constraint ::=
    IndexDef
|   ForeignKeyDef

IndexDef ::=
    ( 'INDEX' | 'KEY' ) IndexName? '(' KeyPartList ')' IndexOption?

KeyPartList ::=
    KeyPart ( ',' KeyPart )*

KeyPart ::=
    ColumnName ( '(' Length ')')? ( 'ASC' | 'DESC' )?
|   '(' Expression ')' ( 'ASC' | 'DESC' )?

IndexOption ::=
    'COMMENT' String
|   ( 'VISIBLE' | 'INVISIBLE' )
|   ('USING' | 'TYPE') ('BTREE' | 'RTREE' | 'HASH')
|   ( 'GLOBAL' | 'LOCAL' )

ForeignKeyDef
         ::= ( 'CONSTRAINT' Identifier )? 'FOREIGN' 'KEY'
             Identifier? '(' ColumnName ( ',' ColumnName )* ')'
             'REFERENCES' TableName '(' ColumnName ( ',' ColumnName )* ')'
             ( 'ON' 'DELETE' ReferenceOption )?
             ( 'ON' 'UPDATE' ReferenceOption )?

ReferenceOption
         ::= 'RESTRICT'
           | 'CASCADE'
           | 'SET' 'NULL'
           | 'SET' 'DEFAULT'
           | 'NO' 'ACTION'

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
|    'TTL' EqOpt TimeColumnName '+' 'INTERVAL' Expression TimeUnit (TTLEnable EqOpt ( 'ON' | 'OFF' ))? (TTLJobInterval EqOpt stringLit)?
|   PlacementPolicyOption

OnCommitOpt ::=
    ('ON' 'COMMIT' 'DELETE' 'ROWS')?

PlacementPolicyOption ::=
    "PLACEMENT" "POLICY" EqOpt PolicyName
|   "PLACEMENT" "POLICY" (EqOpt | "SET") "DEFAULT"

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  | 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 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       | NO   | PRI  | NULL    | auto_increment |
| b     | varchar(200) | NO   |      | NULL    |                |
+-------+--------------+------+------+---------+----------------+
2 rows in set (0.00 sec)

MySQL compatibility

• All of the data types except spatial types are supported.
• TiDB accepts index types such as HASH, BTREE and RTREE in syntax for compatibility with MySQL, but ignores them.
• TiDB supports parsing the FULLTEXT syntax but does not support using the FULLTEXT indexes.
• Setting a PRIMARY KEY or UNIQUE INDEX as a global index with the GLOBAL index option is a TiDB extension for partitioned tables and is not compatible with MySQL.

• 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 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.
• TiDB supports HASH, RANGE, LIST, and KEY partitioning types. For an unsupported partition type, TiDB returns Warning: Unsupported partition type %s, treat as normal table, where %s is the specific unsupported partition type.

See also

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