At 10:52 PM 6/11/2007, you wrote:

>>> No!
>
>Thanks.
>
>I thought so.
>
>ALTER TABLE DROP ... is fine if only it wouldn't require to stop the
>database, or at least to reconnect users.
>
>By the way. Why there is no legal syntax for such changes? Something
>like ALTER my_field COMPUTED BY ...

You can alter a column's identifier, its type or its position. There are also restrictions on what you can change TYPE to.

I guess there's no "legal syntax" for recomputing a COMPUTED BY algorithm because it is compiled into BLR at domain definition time, much like a PSQL module or a view is, i.e., it's not a simple matter of updating a few static attributes.

But actually you won't be able to perform ALTER atable ALTER afield if the table is in use, either.

./hb