Re: Updating LONG data type columns

"Dave Pylatuk" <davep_at_centurysystems.net> wrote in message news:<XGuub.9213$iT4.991931_at_news20.bellglobal.com>...
> Hello all. I have a question about updating a LONG datatype
> column in Oracle 8.1.7.
>
> I have a STUDENT table like:
>
> student_id INTEGER PK
> student_comments LONG
>
> I want to execute a command like this:
>
> UPDATE student SET student_comments = student_comments || 'some new
> comments' WHERE student_id = 1;
>
> I am getting an error message indicating incompatible data types.
> Do I have to do some sort of conversion/cast to add my new
> comments to the existing ones ?
>
> Thanks in advance

columns of data type LONG just plain suck, although not quite as badly as those of data type LONG RAW. those are the worst.

abandon all hope, unless you can convince them to limit it to varchar2(4000) or migrate to data type CLOB. Oracle has lots of documentation covering CLOBs.

or you could use PL/SQL. try the ask tom site - http://asktom.oracle.com.

Pd Received on Tue Nov 18 2003 - 20:00:45 CST