adding a column with default value on a very large table

Hi !

I want to add a new column with a default value on a very large table (100 million of records).
I would like to know if using the following SQL command is suited, seen under the angle of the very large size :

alter table XXXX add column YYYY varchar(4) default '0000';

The good point is that this doesn't use the rollback segments, so the problem is not here.

1. The question is about the speed performances. Is this the speedest method ?
2. Besides I want to know how to estimate the time necessary for this operation.

Thank you,
Frédéric Bachelier Received on Thu Mar 14 2002 - 11:57:35 CST