title: alter external table in sql azure
body: <p>I am trying to alter external table column name to new name</p>
  <p>I followed <a href="http://gpdb.docs.pivotal.io/4320/ref_guide/sql_commands/ALTER_EXTERNAL_TABLE.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> post</p>
  <pre class="lang-sql prettyprint-override"><code>ALTER EXTERNAL TABLE RemoteCustomerTable RENAME [OldName] column TO [Name]
  </code></pre>
  <p><strong>Error:</strong></p>
  <blockquote>
  <p>Incorrect syntax near the keyword 'TABLE'.</p>
  </blockquote>
  <p>Can external table be altered ?</p>
  <p>Any help would be great.</p>
  <p><strong>Update:</strong></p>
  <p>As i dont see any official docs to alter external table, so i droped the external table and re-created it using <a href="http://www.jamesserra.com/archive/2016/03/cross-database-queries-in-azure-sql-database/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a> post</p>
  <pre class="lang-sql prettyprint-override"><code>DROP EXTERNAL TABLE RemoteCustomerTable;
  </code></pre>