BUG #19455: ALTER TABLE RENAME will rename a sequence
The following bug has been logged on the website:
Bug reference: 19455
Logged by: Bob Sislow
Email address: bsislow@accertify.com
PostgreSQL version: 15.2
Operating system: Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.7 (Ootpa)
Description:
Is this expected behavior? ALTER TABLE RENAME will rename a sequence.
postgres=# create sequence test;
CREATE SEQUENCE
postgres=# \ds
List of relations
Schema | Name | Type | Owner
----------+------+----------+----------
dbaadmin | test | sequence | postgres
(1 row)
postgres=# alter table test rename to test2;
ALTER TABLE
postgres=# \ds
List of relations
Schema | Name | Type | Owner
----------+-------+----------+----------
dbaadmin | test2 | sequence | postgres
(1 row)
PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org> writes:
Is this expected behavior? ALTER TABLE RENAME will rename a sequence.
Yes, it is. It'll work on views and (most?) other kinds of relations
too.
To some extent this is a hangover from before we had the more
specialized variants. But it can be handy to not worry too much
about just what kind of relation you're renaming, and tightening
that up would likely break some applications, so we haven't.
regards, tom lane
On Monday, April 13, 2026, PG Bug reporting form <noreply@postgresql.org>
wrote:
The following bug has been logged on the website:
Bug reference: 19455
Logged by: Bob Sislow
Email address: bsislow@accertify.com
PostgreSQL version: 15.2
Operating system: Red Hat Enterprise Linux release 8.7 (Ootpa)
Description:Is this expected behavior? ALTER TABLE RENAME will rename a sequence.
It’s documented:
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-altertable.html#SQL-ALTERTABLE-DESC-RENAME
Arguably it’s better to use alter sequence so the somewhat buried
documentation for this seems ok.
David J.