ALTER_POLICY(7pg13)

🦋 NAME 🦋

ALTER_POLICY — change the definition of a row level security policy.

Okay bestie, welcome to the ALTER_POLICY(7pg13) page from the PostgreSQL 13.23 Documentation. It’s giving “row-level security policy glow-up” and I’m obsessed. 💅

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

ALTER POLICY name ON table_name RENAME TO new_name

ALTER POLICY name ON table_name
    [ TO { role_name | PUBLIC | CURRENT_USER | SESSION_USER } [, ...] ]
    [ USING ( using_expression ) ]
    [ WITH CHECK ( check_expression ) ]

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

ALTER POLICY changes the definition of an existing row-level security policy. Heads up, bestie: ALTER POLICY only lets you modify the set of roles to which the policy applies and the USING and WITH CHECK expressions. To change other properties of a policy, such as the command to which it applies or whether it is permissive or restrictive, the policy must be dropped and recreated. No shortcuts there, fr fr. 😭

To use ALTER POLICY, you must own the table that the policy applies to. That’s the vibe check, and you gotta pass it. 👑

In the second form of ALTER POLICY, the role list, using_expression, and check_expression are replaced independently if specified. When one of those clauses is omitted, the corresponding part of the policy is unchanged. Slay, selective editing. ✨

🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

• name — the name of an existing policy to alter.
• table_name — the name (optionally schema-qualified) of the table that the policy is on.
• new_name — the new name for the policy.
• role_name — the role(s) to which the policy applies. Multiple roles can be specified at one time. To apply the policy to all roles, use PUBLIC.
• using_expression — the USING expression for the policy. See CREATE POLICY (CREATE_POLICY(7)) for details.
• check_expression — the WITH CHECK expression for the policy. See CREATE POLICY (CREATE_POLICY(7)) for details.

💜 COMPATIBILITY 💜

ALTER POLICY is a PostgreSQL extension. Iconic, honestly. 💅

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

• CREATE POLICY (CREATE_POLICY(7))
• DROP POLICY (DROP_POLICY(7))

💖 And that’s the whole ALTER_POLICY page, bestie — brought to you by PostgreSQL 13.23, dated 2025, and filed under ALTER POLICY(7). Mwah! 💅