On Thursday 07 May 2009 19:37:29 Adriano dos Santos Fernandes wrote:

> All,
>
> As we should prevent users from doing direct (and unsafe) system table
> updates, I propose (hoping to be in v2.5) creation of DDL command to
> change [NOT] NULL field constraint.
>
> The syntax would be:
> alter table <table> alter <field> not null;
> alter table <table> alter <field> null;
>
> It's semantics would be:
> When putting "NOT NULL", in DFW (commit time) the table is locked
> and a BLR dynamic query is constructed to inspect for NULL values. If
> there are, we throw an error.

Good suggestion, but not for 2.5 - it's feature-closed after beta1.

Ideally we should prepare a list of other tasks, that currently require direct
system tables updates. And may be implement them all together, and after it
disable such updates.