cassandra add column if not exists

Question

I need to insert a new column into an existing column family via a CQL script.

I want to do something like:

alter COLUMNFAMILY rules ADD rule_template text IF NOT EXISTS;

How can I achieve this purely in CQL script?

Answer 1

There is no optional "if not exists" for altering column families (tables). As a workaround you could just execute the alter command and ignore the error if the column already exists. There shouldn't be any harm in it, other than the error message.