MySQL Database

Does renaming a table in MySQL 5.1 create a temporay table or does it just rename the file .

I want to rename a huge table in Prod , the behaviour of the rename defines how long it will take .

ALTER TABLE operations that are performed in place do not require creating a temporary copy of the original table. These operations include:

• ALTER TABLE operations on InnoDB tables that are supported by the InnoDB online DDL feature. For an overview of supported operations, see Section 14.13.1, “Online DDL Overview”. For information about performance and concurrency of online DDL operations, see Section 14.13.2, “Online DDL Performance, Concurrency, and Space Requirements”.
• ALTER TABLE tbl_name RENAME TO new_tbl_name. When run without other options, MySQL renames files that correspond to the table tbl_name without making a copy. (You can also use the RENAME TABLE statement to rename tables. See Section 13.1.33, “RENAME TABLE Syntax”.) Privileges granted specifically for the renamed table are not migrated to the new name. They must be changed manually.