Re: ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN column SERIAL -- unexpected - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Bruce Momjian writes:

>         o ALTER TABLE ADD COLUMN column SET DEFAULT should fill existing
>           rows with DEFAULT value or allow NULLs in existing rows
>
> My guess is that we will have to do spec behavior by default, and add a
> flag to allow NULLs in existing rows.

May I point you to the already existing set of commands that do exactly
what you want:

ALTER TABLE t1 ADD COLUMN name type;
ALTER TABLE t1 ALTER COLUMN name SET DEFAULT foo;

There's no reason to muck around with the spec here.

-- 
Peter Eisentraut   peter_e@gmx.net