Re: Oracle 8 - Renaming Coulmns

Brian Peasland wrote:
> amerar_at_iwc.net wrote:
> > HI All,
> >
> > I once say an article to rename coluns in Oracle 8. It used some X$
> > dictionary tables. Can't see to find that anywhere.......
> >
> > Also, we are now running Orcle .9.2.0.7. Can we change the order of
> > the columns using the same data disctionary approach??
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
>
> X$ tables do not persist across instance shutdowns. So modifying X$
> anything would not solve the problem. The solution you are referring to
> most likely modified SYS.COL$ instead. But this is definitely not
> advised....doing runs the risk of causing data dictionary corruption.
>
> You could modify SYS.COL$ to change the order of the columns, but that
> would cause real difficulties and the order or the columns in the row in
> each data block would not change. So trying this operation is a recipe
> for disaster...
>
> And this brings us to the real question...why do you care about the
> order of the columns? According to relational database theory, there is
> not specific ordering of the columns or rows in a table. Your SELECT
> statements don't care which order the columns are in the table, unless
> you do "SELECT *" which, IMO, is not good programming practice.
>
> HTH,
> Brian
>

This client I am at, uses SELECT * all over the place. Additionally, they seem fixed on adding this column without creating a temp table, and without import/export.

So, I just want to see if there is a non-documented way to do it, and, explain to the client the dangers of doing it his way........I can only suggest the ways to do it. The client makes the decision.......

Is COL$ the only table that would have to change?

Thanks! Received on Thu Jun 08 2006 - 14:09:36 CDT