[Babase] Altering Boolean column in Schema Pop-bio

Karl O. Pinc kop at meme.com
Thu Aug 26 12:09:33 EDT 2010


On 08/26/2010 10:23:26 AM, Lacey Maryott Roerish wrote:
> Karl,
> 
>     Susan asked that I alter some data-types in a table called
> popbio.gene.
> Basically the majority of the columns contain boolean data, and they
> need to
> be changed to varchar.  I tried before emptying the table, and it
> wouldn't
> alter. I then dumped the data, emptied the table, and it still won't
> work.
>  I did empty the default column, which currently reads 'false' for
> each of
> these boolean columns.  I Don't know why it is not letting me alter
> these.
> Is there a way to force it?

It would help if you gave me an error message.

I suspect the problem is there is no default conversion of
boolean to text.  You need to dump the data.  Destroy
the table and re-create it, and reload the table.
Be sure to dump as SQL, which means either not using
the -F keyword or using -F p for a plaintext sql dump.

You could probably figure out a way to create new columns,
and move column-by-column, and then destroy the
old columns -- if you really wanted to.



Karl <kop at meme.com>
Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                 -- Robert A. Heinlein




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