I have a table that was imported from another source as a column with the char datatype, but the field has international characters. I would like to use nvarcvhar in my table. How can I achieve this?
I already tried updating the columns (using an alter table statement, or "cast as") but the info stored did not get converted.
Thanks
like this
ALTER TABLE TableName ALTER COLUMN ColumnName NVARCHAR(size)
example
CREATE TABLE test (bla VARCHAR(50))
GO
ALTER TABLE test ALTER COLUMN bla NVARCHAR(50)
Make sure that you prefix the string with N when doing the insert
INSERT test VALUES (N'漢語')
SELECT * FROM test
output
bla
--------------------------------------------------
漢語
(1 row(s) affected)
Whatever you do, don't use the SSMS designer/wizard, it will recreate the whole table, see here for example When changing column data types use ALTER TABLE TableName ALTER Column syntax, don't drop and recreate column
alter table your_table alter column your_column nvarchar(length)
SQLFiddle example
Your data is currently in EUC-CN, masquerading as CP1252. It is not lost.
You have several approaches available for conversion to Unicode (look at Converting SQL databases section for overview). In case of SQL Server, you can create extended stored procedures for conversion from EUC-CN to Unicode. This will work but it is not exactly easy (in this case use code page 51936 for your data).
With some luck, depending on what particular characters occur in your data, and what language packs you have installed, you might be able to convert as if from code page 936 like this:
ALTER DATABASE mydatabasename COLLATE Chinese_PRC
If this succeeds, do the same for every column you are going to convert:
ALTER TABLE mytablename ALTER COLUMN mycolumnname
varchar(4000) COLLATE Chinese_PRC NOT NULL
And only then convert them to NVARCHAR.
Related
I have a column of type float that contains phone numbers - I'm aware that this is bad, so I want to convert the column from float to nvarchar(max), converting the data appropriately so as not to lose data.
The conversion can apparently be handled correctly using the STR function (suggested here), but I'm not sure how to go about changing the column type and performing the conversion without creating a temporary column. I don't want to use a temporary column because we are doing this automatically a bunch of times in future and don't want to encounter performance impact from page splits (suggested here)
In Postgres you can add a "USING" option to your ALTER COLUMN statement that specifies how to convert the existing data. I can't find anything like this for TSQL. Is there a way I can do this in place?
Postgres example:
...ALTER COLUMN <column> TYPE <type> USING <func>(<column>);
Rather than use a temporary column in your table, use a (temporary) column in a temporary table. In short:
Create temp table with PK of your table + column you want to change (in the correct data type, of course)
select data into temp table using your conversion method
Change data type in actual table
Update actual table from temp table values
If the table is large, I'd suggest doing this in batches. Of course, if the table isn't large, worrying about page splits is premature optimization since doing a complete rebuild of the table and its indexes after the conversion would be cheap. Another question is: why nvarchar(max)? The data is phone numbers. Last time I checked, phone numbers were fairly short (certainly less than the 2 Gb that nvarchar(max) can hold) and non-unicode. Do some domain modeling to figure out the appropriate data size and you'll thank me later. Lastly, why would you do this "automatically a bunch of times in future"? Why not have the correct data type and insert the right values?
In sqlSever:
CREATE TABLE dbo.Employee
(
EmployeeID INT IDENTITY (1,1) NOT NULL
,FirstName VARCHAR(50) NULL
,MiddleName VARCHAR(50) NULL
,LastName VARCHAR(50) NULL
,DateHired datetime NOT NULL
)
-- Change the datatype to support 100 characters and make NOT NULL
ALTER TABLE dbo.Employee
ALTER COLUMN FirstName VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL
-- Change datatype and allow NULLs for DateHired
ALTER TABLE dbo.Employee
ALTER COLUMN DateHired SMALLDATETIME NULL
-- Set SPARSE columns for Middle Name (sql server 2008 only)
ALTER TABLE dbo.Employee
ALTER COLUMN MiddleName VARCHAR(100) SPARSE NULL
http://sqlserverplanet.com/ddl/alter-table-alter-column
What happens when you execute the same alter column several times, e.g:
ALTER table1 ALTER column column1 varchar(40)
ALTER table1 ALTER column column1 varchar(40)
...
Does SQL Server compare altering types in first place or does it use the same mechanism for every alter?
You can check the transaction log, or use table change tracking, or use CDC to track, then you will find out what id the difference between first time and second time. You will see no difference.
I have a SQL Server 2008 table which contains an external user reference currently stored as a bigint - the userid from the external table. I want to extend this to allow email address, open ID etc to be used as the external identifier. Is it possible to alter the column datatype from bigint to varchar without affecting any of the existing data?
Yes, that should be possible, no problem - as long as you make your VARCHAR field big enough to hold you BIGINT values :-)
You'd have to use something like this T-SQL:
ALTER TABLE dbo.YourTable
ALTER COLUMN YourColumnName VARCHAR(50) -- or whatever you want
and that should be it! Since all BIGINT values can be converted into a string, that command should work just fine and without any danger of losing data.
I have SQL Server database and I just realized that I can change the type of one of the columns from int to bool.
How can I do that without losing the data that is already entered into that table?
You can easily do this using the following command. Any value of 0 will be turned into a 0 (BIT = false), anything else will be turned into 1 (BIT = true).
ALTER TABLE dbo.YourTable
ALTER COLUMN YourColumnName BIT
The other option would be to create a new column of type BIT, fill it from the old column, and once you're done, drop the old column and rename the new one to the old name. That way, if something during the conversion goes wrong, you can always go back since you still have all the data..
ALTER TABLE tablename
ALTER COLUMN columnname columndatatype(size)
Note: if there is a size of columns, just write the size also.
If it is a valid change.
you can change the property.
Tools --> Options --> Designers --> Table and Database designers --> Uncheck --> Prevent saving changes that required table re-creation.
Now you can easily change the column name without recreating the table or losing u r records.
if you use T-SQL(MSSQL); you should try this script:
ALTER TABLE [Employee] ALTER COLUMN [Salary] NUMERIC(22,5)
if you use MySQL; you should try this script:
ALTER TABLE [Employee] MODIFY COLUMN [Salary] NUMERIC(22,5)
if you use Oracle; you should try this script:
ALTER TABLE [Employee] MODIFY [Salary] NUMERIC(22,5)
Why do you think you will lose data? Simply go into Management Studio and change the data type. If the existing value can be converted to bool (bit), it will do that. In other words, if "1" maps to true and "0" maps to false in your original field, you'll be fine.
Go to Tool-Option-designers-Table and Database designers and Uncheck Prevent saving option
for me , in sql server 2016, I do it like this
*To rename column Column1 to column2
EXEC sp_rename 'dbo.T_Table1.Column1', 'Column2', 'COLUMN'
*To modify column Type from string to int:( Please be sure that data are in the correct format)
ALTER TABLE dbo.T_Table1 ALTER COLUMN Column2 int;
Alter column data type with check type of column :
IF EXISTS(
SELECT 1
FROM sys.columns
WHERE NAME = 'YourColumnName'
AND [object_id] = OBJECT_ID('dbo.YourTable')
AND TYPE_NAME(system_type_id) = 'int'
)
ALTER TABLE dbo.YourTable ALTER COLUMN YourColumnName BIT
In compact edition will take size automatically for datetime data type i.e. (8) so no need to set size of field and generate error for this operation...
I can modify the table field's datatype, with these following query: and also in the Oracle DB,
ALTER TABLE table_name
MODIFY column_name datatype;
Replace datatype without losing data
alter table tablename modify columnn newdatatype(size);
I have a column which has a datatype : datetime. But now i want to convert it to datatype varchar. Can i alter the datatype without droppping the column? If yes, then please explain how?
MSDN says
ALTER TABLE mytable ALTER COLUMN mycolumn newtype
Beware of the limitations of the ALTER COLUMN clause listed in the article
If ALTER COLUMN doesn't work.
It is not unusual for alter column to fail because it cannot make the transformation you desire. In this case, the solution is to create a dummy table TableName_tmp, copy the data over with your specialized transformation in the bulk Insert command, drop the original table, and rename the tmp table to the original table's name. You'll have to drop and recreate the Foreign key constraints and, for performance, you'll probably want to create keys after filling the tmp table.
Sound like a lot of work? Actually, it isn't.
If you are using SQL Server, you can make the SQL Server Management Studio do the work for you!
Bring up your table structure (right-click on the table column and select "Modify")
Make all of your changes (if the column transformation is illegal, just add your new column - you'll patch it up in a moment).
Right-click on the background of the Modify window and select "Generate Change Script." In the window that appears, you can copy the change script to the clipboard.
Cancel the Modify (you'll want to test your script, after all) and then paste the script into a new query window.
Modify as necessary (e.g. add your transformation while removing the field from the tmp table declaration) and you now have the script necessary to make your transformation.
ALTER TABLE [table name] MODIFY COLUMN [column name] datatype
ALTER TABLE YourTableNameHere ALTER COLUMN YourColumnNameHere VARCHAR(20)
Type the below query:
alter table table_Name alter column column_name datatype
e.g.
alter table Message alter column message nvarchar(1024);
ALTER TABLE YourTableNameHere ALTER COLUMN YourColumnNameHere VARCHAR(20)
With SQL server 2008 and more, using this query:
ALTER TABLE [RecipeInventorys] ALTER COLUMN [RecipeName] varchar(550)
This work for postgresql 9.0.3
alter table [table name] ALTER COLUMN [column name] TYPE [character varying];
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/sql-altertable.html
ALTER TABLE [table_name] ALTER COLUMN [column_name] varchar(150)
ALTER TABLE YourTableNameHere ALTER COLUMN YourColumnNameHere VARCHAR(20) this is perfect for change to datatype
ORACLE - Alter table table_name modify(column_name new_DataType);
ALTER TABLE yourtable MODIFY COLUMN yourcolumn datatype
ALTER TABLE table_name
MODIFY (column_name data_type);
ALTER tablename MODIFY columnName newColumnType
I'm not sure how it will handle the change from datetime to varchar though, so you may need to rename the column, add a new one with the old name and the correct data type (varchar) and then write an update query to populate the new column from the old.
http://www.1keydata.com/sql/sql-alter-table.html
alter table [table name] remove [present column name] to [new column name.