ALTER_OPERATOR(7pg14)

✨ NAME ✨

okay so bestie, welcome to the ALTER OPERATOR page from the PostgreSQL 14.24 Documentation — manual section 7 vibes. no cap, this one is all about giving an operator's definition a little glow-up.

ALTER_OPERATOR — change the definition of an operator. periodt.

---

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

bestie, here's the exact syntax so you can copy-paste and slay:

ALTER OPERATOR name ( { left_type | NONE } , right_type )
    OWNER TO { new_owner | CURRENT_ROLE | CURRENT_USER | SESSION_USER }

ALTER OPERATOR name ( { left_type | NONE } , right_type )
    SET SCHEMA new_schema

ALTER OPERATOR name ( { left_type | NONE } , right_type )
    SET ( {  RESTRICT = { res_proc | NONE }
           | JOIN = { join_proc | NONE }
         } [, ... ] )

---

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

okay so ALTER OPERATOR changes the definition of an operator. that's the whole main-character move.

You must own the operator to use ALTER OPERATOR. To alter the owner, you must also be a direct or indirect member of the new owning role, and that role must have CREATE privilege on the operator's schema. (These restrictions enforce that altering the owner doesn't do anything you couldn't do by dropping and recreating the operator. However, a superuser can alter ownership of any operator anyway.)

bestie, don't skip the ownership vibe check — it's literally in the rules 💖

---

🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

• name — The name (optionally schema-qualified) of an existing operator.
• left_type — The data type of the operator's left operand; write NONE if the operator has no left operand.
• right_type — The data type of the operator's right operand.
• new_owner — The new owner of the operator.
• new_schema — The new schema for the operator.
• res_proc — The restriction selectivity estimator function for this operator; write NONE to remove existing selectivity estimator.
• join_proc — The join selectivity estimator function for this operator; write NONE to remove existing selectivity estimator.

---

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Change the owner of a custom operator a @@ b for type text — iconic, do this:

ALTER OPERATOR @@ (text, text) OWNER TO joe;

Change the restriction and join selectivity estimator functions of a custom operator a && b for type int[] — here's the move:

ALTER OPERATOR && (_int4, _int4) SET (RESTRICT = _int_contsel, JOIN = _int_contjoinsel);

---

🌸 COMPATIBILITY 🌸

There is no ALTER OPERATOR statement in the SQL standard. bestie, it's just not there fr fr.

---

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

• CREATE OPERATOR (CREATE_OPERATOR(7))
• DROP OPERATOR (DROP_OPERATOR(7))

---

xoxo, your Unix bestie 💖 — this page is from PostgreSQL 14.24, dated 2026, for ALTER OPERATOR(7). slay responsibly ✨