SQL Server equivalent to Oracle's CREATE OR REPLACE VIEW
The solutions above though they will get the job done do so at the risk of dropping user permissions. I prefer to do my create or replace views or stored procedures as follows.
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.views WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[dbo].[vw_myView]'))
EXEC sp_executesql N'CREATE VIEW [dbo].[vw_myView] AS SELECT ''This is a code stub which will be replaced by an Alter Statement'' as [code_stub]'
GO
ALTER VIEW [dbo].[vw_myView]
AS
SELECT 'This is a code which should be replaced by the real code for your view' as [real_code]
GO
You can use 'IF EXISTS' to check if the view exists and drop if it does.
IF EXISTS (SELECT TABLE_NAME FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.VIEWS WHERE TABLE_NAME = 'MyView') DROP VIEW MyView GO CREATE VIEW MyView AS .... GO
For reference from SQL Server 2016 SP1+
you could use CREATE OR ALTER VIEW
syntax.
MSDN CREATE VIEW:
CREATE [ OR ALTER ] VIEW [ schema_name . ] view_name [ (column [ ,...n ] ) ] [ WITH <view_attribute> [ ,...n ] ] AS select_statement [ WITH CHECK OPTION ] [ ; ]
OR ALTER
Conditionally alters the view only if it already exists.
db<>fiddle demo