# Manage Data Catalog views
<a name="views-glue-managing"></a>

You can use DDL commands to update and manage your Data Catalog views.

## Update a Data Catalog view
<a name="views-glue-updating-a-data-catalog-view"></a>

The `Lake Formation` admin or definer can use the `ALTER VIEW UPDATE DIALECT` syntax to update the view definition. The following example modifies the view definition to select columns from the `returns` table instead of the `orders` table.

```
ALTER VIEW orders_by_date UPDATE DIALECT
AS
SELECT return_date, sum(totalprice) AS price
FROM returns
WHERE order_city = 'SEATTLE'
GROUP BY orderdate
```

## Supported DDL actions for Amazon Glue Data Catalog views
<a name="views-glue-supported-actions"></a>

Athena supports the following actions for Amazon Glue Data Catalog views.


| Statement | Description | 
| --- | --- | 
| [ALTER VIEW DIALECT](alter-view-dialect.md) | Updates a Data Catalog view by either adding an engine dialect or by updating or dropping an existing engine dialect. | 
| [CREATE PROTECTED MULTI DIALECT VIEW](create-view.md#create-protected-multi-dialect-view) | Creates a Data Catalog view from a specified `SELECT` query. For more information, see [CREATE PROTECTED MULTI DIALECT VIEW](create-view.md#create-protected-multi-dialect-view).<br />The optional `OR REPLACE` clause lets you update the existing view by replacing it. | 
| [DESCRIBE VIEW](describe-view.md) | Shows the list of columns for the named view. This allows you to examine the attributes of a complex view.  | 
| [DROP VIEW](drop-view.md) | Deletes an existing view. The optional `IF EXISTS` clause suppresses the error if the view does not exist. | 
| [SHOW CREATE VIEW](show-create-view.md) | Shows the SQL statement that creates the specified view. | 
| [SHOW VIEWS](show-views.md) | Lists the views in the specified database, or in the current database if you omit the database name. Use the optional `LIKE` clause with a regular expression to restrict the list of view names. You can also see the list of views in the left pane in the console. | 
| [SHOW COLUMNS](show-columns.md) | Lists the columns in the schema for a view. |