MySQL: Rename a Table with Alter Table or Rename Table Command

MySQL offers two ways to rename tables. The first one uses the ALTER TABLE syntax:

ALTER TABLE old_table_name RENAME new_table_name;

The second way is to use RENAME TABLE:

RENAME TABLE old_table_name TO new_table_name;

RENAME TABLE offers more flexibility. It allows renaming multiple tables in one statement. This can be useful when replacing a table with a new pre-populated version:

RENAME TABLE products TO products_old, products_new TO products;

The above statement is executed left to right, so there's no conflict naming products_new to products since the existing table has already been renamed to products_old. Furthermore, this is done atomically.