ALTER TABLE SWITCH statement failed because column '%.*ls' at ordinal %d in table '%.*ls' has a different name than the column '%.*ls' at the same ordinal in table '%.*ls'.

Error Message
Msg 4942, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
ALTER TABLE SWITCH statement failed because column '%.*ls' at ordinal %d in table '%.*ls' has a different name than the column '%.*ls' at the same ordinal in table '%.*ls'.

Severity level
16

Description
This error message appears, when you try to execute an ALTER TABLE SWITCH command for which columns with the same ordinal positions have different names in source and target.

Consequences
The T-SQL statement can be parsed, but causes the error at runtime.

Resolution
Error of the Severity Level 16 are generated by the user and are corrigible by the user. The statement can not be executed this way. Column names at identical ordinal positions must be identical in source and target.

Versions
This error message was introduced with SQL Server 2005.

Example(s)
USE Pubs
GO
CREATE PARTITION FUNCTION myPartFunction (int)
    AS RANGE LEFT FOR VALUES (1, 10, 100);
GO

CREATE PARTITION SCHEME myPartScheme
    AS PARTITION myPartFunction
   ALL TO ([PRIMARY]);
GO

CREATE TABLE myPartTable
(
 c1 int
)
ON myPartScheme (c1);

GO
CREATE TABLE myNonPartTable
(
 c2 int
)
ON [PRIMARY];
GO
ALTER TABLE myPartTable SWITCH PARTITION 1 TO dbo.myNonPartTable ;
GO

DROP TABLE myNonPartTable, myPartTable;
DROP PARTITION SCHEME myPartScheme;
DROP PARTITION FUNCTION myPartFunction;

Remarks
In the above example we try to execute an ALTER TABLE SWITCH command. Because the columns at position 1 have different names in the source and target table, the error is raised.