How can I modify (decrease) a column ?

Hi,

I'm trying to change the layout of a table. I just want to change a CHAR(10) to CHAR(8), and ORACLE tells me to clear (empty) the table first. But I don't have records with longer entries than 8 chars, so why must I delete my records?

It says:

"column to be modified must be empty to decrease column length"

Generally spoken, is there a solution to savely change my database layout (shure, "compatible" changes only) without loosing my data (if I know what i'm doing :-)) ?

Thanks for any help,
Peter Received on Fri May 26 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT