Alter table add column like another column syntax

Question

I was looking into MySQL specification, but couldn't find any solution to my problem. I want to clone specific columns in several tables like this:

ALTER TABLE `table` ADD COLUMN `new_column` LIKE `column` AFTER `column`;

Of course this gives me syntax error: right syntax to use near 'LIKE `column` AFTER `column`', what i was expecting. Is there any possible solution to this or i have to specify directly a new column? I know that "cloning" table structure using LIKE operator is possible. Is it also possible in this case?

Answer 1

No. This is not possible using command.

All you can do is write a procedure to grab the table & column-name. Get the column definition from information_schema. Create alter-table-modify-column syntaxes & exec... Something like following:

call modify_table(target_table, source_table, source_column);