Thread: Dropping a column

I know how to drop a column from a table by selecting into a new table the columns I want to keep. However the problem
Iam running into is that some of the columns in my original table have certain attibutes (auto incrememnting, default
values,etc) however the method of: 

SELECT id,name,description INTO TABLE temp FROM origtable;
DROP TABLE origtable;
ALTER TABLE temp RENAME TO origtable;

Preserves my data but not the extra column information (at least according to a \d tablename)

Anyone know if it is possible to do this?

Thanks.

--
------------------------------------------------------------
 Patrick Aland                          paland@stetson.edu
 Network Administrator                  Voice: 904.822.7217
 Stetson University                     Fax: 904.822.7367
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Patrick Aland wrote:
>
> I know how to drop a column from a table by selecting into a new table the columns I want to keep. However the
problemI am running into is that some of the columns in my original table have certain attibutes (auto incrememnting,
defaultvalues, etc) however the method of: 
>
> SELECT id,name,description INTO TABLE temp FROM origtable;
> DROP TABLE origtable;
> ALTER TABLE temp RENAME TO origtable;
>
> Preserves my data but not the extra column information (at least according to a \d tablename)
>
> Anyone know if it is possible to do this?
>
> Thanks.
>
...snip...

Hi

You can create a new table then :

INSERT INTO newtable (id,name,description) SELECT id,name,description
from origtable;

DROP TABLE origtable;

ALTER TABLE newtable RENAME TO origtable;

That has worked for me in the past, when I noticed this problem.

Guy