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# PostgreSQL PHP: Create New Tables

**Info:** Creating tables from PHP with PDO and CREATE TABLE works the same against any PostgreSQL server, so you can apply this tutorial wherever you run Postgres. If you're an enterprise building for the AI era, [Lakebase](https://www.databricks.com/product/lakebase) delivers the most performant and secure managed Postgres, fully integrated into the Lakehouse. If you're a developer or startup that needs to ship and scale fast, [Neon](https://neon.com) gives you the best Postgres platform to build on.

**Summary**: in this tutorial, you will learn how to create new tables in the PostgreSQL database using PHP PDO API.

## Creating new tables using PHP PDO steps

To create new tables in a PostgreSQL database using PHP PDO, you follow these steps:

1. First, [connect to the database](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/connect) by creating a new PDO object.
2. Second, call the `exec()` method of the PDO object to execute the [CREATE TABLE](../postgresql-tutorial/postgresql-create-table) statement.

Let's look at an example of creating new tables.

## Creating new table example

In the previous tutorial, we created the `stocks` database in the PostgreSQL database server.

For the demonstration, we'll create two new tables in the `stocks` database: `stocks` and `stock_evaluations` with the following structures:

```sql
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS stocks (
    id SERIAL PRIMARY KEY,
    symbol CHARACTER VARYING(10) NOT NULL UNIQUE,
    company CHARACTER VARYING(255) NOT NULL UNIQUE
);
```

```sql
CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS stock_valuations (
    stock_id INTEGER NOT NULL,
    value_on DATE NOT NULL,
    price NUMERIC(8 , 2 ) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
    PRIMARY KEY (stock_id , value_on),
    FOREIGN KEY (stock_id)
        REFERENCES stocks (id)
);
```

We create a new class named `PostgreSQLCreateTable` in the `app` folder.

```php
<?php

namespace PostgreSQLTutorial;
/**
 * Create table in PostgreSQL from PHP demo
 */
class PostgreSQLCreateTable {

    /**
     * PDO object
     * @var \PDO
     */
    private $pdo;

    /**
     * init the object with a \PDO object
     * @param type $pdo
     */
    public function __construct($pdo) {
        $this->pdo = $pdo;
    }

    /**
     * create tables
     */
    public function createTables() {
        $sqlList = ['CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS stocks (
                        id serial PRIMARY KEY,
                        symbol character varying(10) NOT NULL UNIQUE,
                        company character varying(255) NOT NULL UNIQUE
                     );',
            'CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS stock_valuations (
                        stock_id INTEGER NOT NULL,
                        value_on date NOT NULL,
                        price numeric(8,2) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0,
                        PRIMARY KEY (stock_id, value_on),
                        FOREIGN KEY (stock_id) REFERENCES stocks(id)
                    );'];

        // execute each sql statement to create new tables
        foreach ($sqlList as $sql) {
            $this->pdo->exec($sql);
        }

        return $this;
    }

    /**
     * return tables in the database
     */
    public function getTables() {
        $stmt = $this->pdo->query("SELECT table_name
                                   FROM information_schema.tables
                                   WHERE table_schema= 'public'
                                        AND table_type='BASE TABLE'
                                   ORDER BY table_name");
        $tableList = [];
        while ($row = $stmt->fetch(\PDO::FETCH_ASSOC)) {
            $tableList[] = $row['table_name'];
        }

        return $tableList;
    }
}

```

How it works.

- First, the constructor of the class accepts a PDO object as the argument.
- Second, the `createTables()` method creates new tables in the database. The `$sqlList` array holds all the [CREATE TABLE](../postgresql-tutorial/postgresql-create-table) statements. To execute a statement, you call the `exec()` method of the PDO object. We iterate over the array of SQL statements and execute them one by one by calling the `exec()` method.
- Third, the `getTables()` method returns all tables in the connected database. We use it to query the tables in the `stocks` database after calling the `createTables()` method.

![PostgreSQL PHP Create Tables](https://neon.com/postgresqltutorial/PostgreSQL-PHP-Create-Tables.png)
In the `index.php` file, connect to the PostgreSQL database execute the statement to create tables and query tables.

```php
<?php

require 'vendor/autoload.php';

use PostgreSQLTutorial\Connection as Connection;
use PostgreSQLTutorial\PostgreSQLCreateTable as PostgreSQLCreateTable;

try {

    // connect to the PostgreSQL database
    $pdo = Connection::get()->connect();

    //
    $tableCreator = new PostgreSQLCreateTable($pdo);

    // create tables and query the table from the
    // database
    $tables = $tableCreator->createTables()
                            ->getTables();

    foreach ($tables as $table){
        echo $table . '<br>';
    }

} catch (\PDOException $e) {
    echo $e->getMessage();
}

```

Launch the `index.php` file in a web browser. You'll see the following output:

```
stock_valuations
stocks
```

The output shows that the script has created two tables successfully.

## Summary

- Use the `CREATE TABLE` statement to create a new table.
- Use the PDO `exec()` method to to execute a `CREATE TABLE` statement to create a new table in the datatabase.

---

## Related docs (PostgreSQL PHP)

- [Connect to PostgreSQL Database Using PDO](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/connect)
- [Insert Data Into Tables in PHP](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/insert)
- [Update Data In a Table using PHP](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/update)
- [Handle Transaction in PHP](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/transaction)
- [Query Data From PostgresQL using PDO](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/query)
- [Call PostgreSQL Stored Procedures in PHP](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/call-stored-procedures)
- [Manage with BLOB in PHP](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/blob)
- [Delete Data From a Table in PHP](https://neon.com/postgresql/php/delete)