Microsoft® SQL Server® 2008 Administrator's Pocket Consultant

Working with Tables

SQL Server provides many ways to work with tables. You can create new tables by using the New Table feature in SQL Server Management Studio or the CREATE TABLE command. You can modify existing tables by using the Modify Table feature in SQL Server Management Studio or the ALTER TABLE command. You can also perform other table management functions, including copy, rename, and delete.

Creating Tables

Before you create a table, you should consider the table name carefully. Table names can be up to 128 characters long. Table names must begin with an alphabetic character, but they can also contain underscores (_), "at" symbols (@), pound signs (#), and numerals. The exceptions to this rule are temporary tables. Local temporary tables ...