Assume that we have created a table with a certain column order:

 CREATE TABLE t1 (id INT PRIMARY KEY, i2 INT, i1 INT) ENGINE=INNODB; 

but later decide to change that order, and take advantage of this being possible as an instant operation in MariaDB 10.4 and later:

 ALTER TABLE t1 MODIFY COLUMN i2 INT AFTER i1, ALGORITHM=INSTANT; 

Now lets assume we want to create a copy of this table, and use tablespace import for that. Let's start by create the new copy as a copy of the old table schema, and name it t2:

 CREATE TABLE t2 LIKE t1; 

Now to get the data over, too, lets start by discarding the new tables tablespace right away:

 ALTER TABLE t2 DISCARD TABLESPACE; 

and flush the original table for export:

 FLUSH TABLE t1 FOR EXPORT; 

Then copy over the .ibd and .cfg files:

cd $datadir/db_dir

cp t1.ibd t2.ibd

cp t1.cfg t2.cfg

chown mysql:mysql t2.*

then unlock t1 and try to import the data into t2:

UNLOCK TABLES;

ALTER TABLE t2 IMPORT TABLESPACE;

This should succeed, as both tables look the same on the SQL level, but fails with:

ERROR 1808 (HY000): Schema mismatch (Index field name i1 doesn't match tablespace metadata field name i2 for field position 3)