In Oracle SQL, creating a backup table is typically done by copying the structure and data of the original table into a new table. You can use the CREATE TABLE AS SELECT (CTAS) statement to create a backup of the table.
Syntax:
CREATE TABLE backup_table AS
SELECT *
FROM original_table;
This statement creates a new table (backup_table) with the same data as the original table but without any constraints (like primary keys, indexes, foreign keys, etc.).
Example:
Assume you have a table called employees, and you want to create a backup of this table.
CREATE TABLE employees_backup AS
SELECT *
FROM employees;
This will create a table employees_backup with the same structure and data as the employees table.
If you want to copy just the structure (without data):
You can use the WHERE clause with a condition that always evaluates to false.
CREATE TABLE employees_backup AS
SELECT *
FROM employees
WHERE 1=0;
This will create the employees_backup table with the same structure as employees but without any rows.
Additional Steps:
If you want to back up constraints (indexes, foreign keys, etc.), you will need to manually recreate them after creating the backup table.
-- Example of adding a primary key to the backup table
ALTER TABLE employees_backup ADD CONSTRAINT pk_emp_backup PRIMARY KEY (employee_id);
You can also export the table's structure and data using Oracle's export utilities if needed.