At 09:59 PM 11/01/2012, porapu wrote:

>Hi to one and All.In my working database some columns are created with Numeric datatype whose precision and scale is Numeric(15,2) where I want only 2 decimals.So if I am trying to Alter the scale of that column ie to Numeric(15,5) SQL is throwing the error like below
>
>Unsuccessful metadata update
>Newscale specified for the column must be at most 2
>
>I used the below query to Alter the scale
>
>ALTER TABLE EMP ALTER NOTINT TYPE Numeric(15,5)
>
>If I am trying to create the column with Numeric(15,5) it is working fine.
>
>But I want to alter the columns whose scale is Numeric(15,2) to Numeric(15,5) through coding..It is giving the above error.Please can any one help me regarding this..

ALTER TABLE EMP ALTER NOTINT TYPE Numeric(18,5)

You can't alter a numeric type by "pushing the decimal places leftward". It leaves nowhere for the (theoretical) left-hand integers to go.

Note, there is *no* difference in storage terms between a numeric(15) and a numeric(18). Both are stored as 64-bit integers. What your change will do is alter the exponent of the number from (-2) to (-5). It is stored elsewhere.

./heLen