Re: How can I modify (decrease) a column ?

You cannot decrease the size of a column only incerase it. My suggestion is to copy the table and recreate it with the correct column char(8). Then insert from the old table into the new table.

Donna Tafoya

Peter Wichert wrote:

> 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 Tue May 30 2000 - 00:00:00 CDT