Re: ALTER column TYPE varying question - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Tom Lane
Subject Re: ALTER column TYPE varying question
Date
Msg-id 16573.1173716430@sss.pgh.pa.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to ALTER column TYPE varying question  ("Paolo Negri" <hungrylist@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-general
"Paolo Negri" <hungrylist@gmail.com> writes:
> I need to increase the length of a string field using version 8.1

8.1.what?

> After executing
> ALTER TABLE mytable ALTER COLUMN mycolumn TYPE varchar(120)
> I can see the column definition correctly changes and I can insert
> rows with longer data in mycolumn.
> But when I try to update data which were in the table before the ALTER
> TABLE I get
> "ERROR:  value too long for type character varying(60)"

Please provide a self-contained test case.  It works in simple cases:

regression=# create table mytable (mycolumn varchar(60));
CREATE TABLE
regression=# insert into mytable values ('foo');
INSERT 0 1
regression=# ALTER TABLE mytable ALTER COLUMN mycolumn TYPE varchar(120);
ALTER TABLE
regression=# update mytable set mycolumn = repeat('x',100);
UPDATE 1
regression=#

It sounds like you have a case where the old table definition is still
reflected in a cached plan ...

            regards, tom lane

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