SQL Add column only if it doesn't exist

[roaddog]

I have found this ALTER TABLE function lately, so I want to know how to check whether the column exists by using some kind of IF NOT EXISTS statement? Any idea how to do so?

Edited February 8, 2015 by Guest

[roaddog]

Anyone please?

[Tomas]

  
IF COL_LENGTH('table_name', 'column_name') IS NULL 
  
BEGIN 
  
        ALTER TABLE table_name 
        ADD [column_name] INT 
END 
  

Example taken from: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8870 ... eady-exist