Adding a new NOT NULL field to an existing table

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Adding a new NOT NULL field to an existing table

muthukrishnan.e

SSC Veteran

Points: 294
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January 22, 2008 at 9:32 pm

#91639

Adding a new NOT NULL field to an existing table

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Chandra Sekhara Vyas Dhara SSChampion Points: 10207 More actions · Answer 1

If any data existing in the table copy the same into a temparory table. Delete the records in the table and alter the table. Insert the records into table from temporary table.

Jeff Moden SSC Guru Points: 1004638 More actions · Answer 2

Just add the column as a nullable column. Then populate it. When you're done, alter the column to be not null.

--Jeff Moden

RBAR is pronounced "ree-bar" and is a "Modenism" for Row-By-Agonizing-Row.
First step towards the paradigm shift of writing Set Based code:
________Stop thinking about what you want to do to a ROW... think, instead, of what you want to do to a COLUMN.

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russell-154600 Ten Centuries Points: 1375 More actions · Answer 3

one other approach is to give it a default value, then drop the default constraint.

Johan Bijnens SSC Guru Points: 135551 More actions · Answer 4

if you use

alter table xyz add mycol int not null default 0

keep in mind to rebuild your indexes afterward because your clusterratio may be horrible !

Johan

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