title: Performance concerns regarding ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN
body: <p>I have a big MySQL InnoDB table having 5 million rows. I need to add a column to the table which will have a default <code>int</code> value.</p>
  
  <p>What is the best way to do it? The normal alter table command appears to take a lot of time.  Is there any better way to do it?  Basically I want to know if there is any faster way or efficient way of doing it.</p>
  
  <p>And if the table has foreign key references, is there any way other than alter table to do this?</p>
  
  <p>Any help appreciated.</p>