At 20/03/2002 01:35 PM, you wrote:

> >1. ALTER TABLE tbl ADD TEMP VARCHAR(6) CHARACTER SET UNICODE_FSS
> >2. UPDATE tbl SET TEMP=field_being_updated
> >3. ALTER TABLE tbl DROP field_being_updated
> >4. ALTER TABLE tbl ALTER TEMP TO field_being_updated
>
>Hmmm... strange. I would expect that you'd get the error on the
>update statement. My guess at the culprit is step 4 above, changing
>the name of the column. A safer, though longer, way to do that
>would be to replace step 4 with
>
> 4. alter table tbl add field_being_updated
> 5. update tbl set field_being_updated = temp
> 6. alter table tbl drop field temp

Thanks for the reply Ann.

Or maybe replace step 2 with:
2. update table set temp=substring(field_being_updated from 1 for 6)
or should it be, since it's unicode:
2. update table set temp=substring(field_being_updated from 1 for 18)

I would only use this syntax if the length of the new string is shorter
than the old one.

Just thinking out loud here and just to get an opinion. And, I'm not too
sure about the substring syntax for unicode.


Daniel Rail
Senior System Engineer
ACCRA Group Inc. (www.accra.ca)
ACCRA Med Software Inc. (www.accramed.ca)