Thread: drop column
is there a trick to drop a column in a table ? or do I need to recreate the table and drop the old one ? thnx, peter -- mag. peter pilsl phone: +43 676 3574035 fax : +43 676 3546512 email: pilsl@goldfisch.at sms : pilsl@max.mail.at pgp-key available
Unfortunately, Postgres' greatest shortcoming (IMHO) is the inability to change table definitions much after creation. To effect any column changes besides DEFAULT clauses and indexing (and a few other options), you have to drop and re-create the table. Keary Suska Esoteritech, Inc. "Leveraging Open Source for a better Internet" > From: Peter Pilsl <pilsl@goldfisch.at> > Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 10:44:34 +0200 > To: postgres mailinglist <pgsql-general@postgresql.org> > Subject: [GENERAL] drop column > > is there a trick to drop a column in a table ? or do I need to > recreate the table and drop the old one ? > > thnx, > peter > > -- > mag. peter pilsl > > phone: +43 676 3574035 > fax : +43 676 3546512 > email: pilsl@goldfisch.at > sms : pilsl@max.mail.at > > pgp-key available > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly >
Amen. >Unfortunately, Postgres' greatest shortcoming (IMHO) is the inability to >change table definitions much after creation. To effect any column changes >besides DEFAULT clauses and indexing (and a few other options), you have to >drop and re-create the table. > >Keary Suska >Esoteritech, Inc. >"Leveraging Open Source for a better Internet" > > > From: Peter Pilsl <pilsl@goldfisch.at> > > Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 10:44:34 +0200 > > To: postgres mailinglist <pgsql-general@postgresql.org> > > Subject: [GENERAL] drop column > > > > is there a trick to drop a column in a table ? or do I need to > > recreate the table and drop the old one ? > > > > thnx, > > peter > > > > -- > > mag. peter pilsl > > > > phone: +43 676 3574035 > > fax : +43 676 3546512 > > email: pilsl@goldfisch.at > > sms : pilsl@max.mail.at > > > > pgp-key available > > > > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- > > TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate > > subscribe-nomail command to majordomo@postgresql.org so that your > > message can get through to the mailing list cleanly > > > > >---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- >TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? > >http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/faq.html
On Thu, Oct 18, 2001 at 12:03:35PM -0600, Keary Suska wrote: > Unfortunately, Postgres' greatest shortcoming (IMHO) is the inability to > change table definitions much after creation. To effect any column changes > besides DEFAULT clauses and indexing (and a few other options), you have to > drop and re-create the table. Well, you can add and rename columns. What I tend to do is rename them to unused_xx and then if I ever get around to reloading the database, I simply exclude them. But yeah, it would be nice. Anyone volunteering? I think there are some discussions about this and basically it would require allowing different rows in the same table to have different numbers of fields. Adding to the end is easy because you can just fill in the nulls on load. -- Martijn van Oosterhout <kleptog@svana.org> http://svana.org/kleptog/ > Magnetism, electricity and motion are like a three-for-two special offer: > if you have two of them, the third one comes free.