Tiago,

<< Ok, but you agree with me things were easier with DBISAM >>

Only in this aspect - renaming columns.

<< I see here: >>

My apologies, I'll correct that - it was copied over from the CREATE TABLE
and not modified.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tiago,

<< Receive my apologies for my wilfulness, but how to reorder a column and
add not null, default, check, description in just one sentence? >>

You indicated that you wished to *alter* the column, which you can do in a
single statement.  *Moving* a column has to occur in a different statement,
yes, but I don't consider moving a column the same as altering its
definition.  The position of a column is not the same as its definition.

And again, this all stems from the fact that EDB is SQL 2003 compliant.  We
didn't have the luxury of just "making up" the syntax as we went along, like
we did with DBISAM.  We had to comply with the structure and flow available
to us with regard to the standard, and we could only add extensions that fit
this structure and flow.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

>And again, this all stems from the fact that EDB is SQL 2003 compliant.  We

I'll revisit my SQL 2003 book. Thanks, Tim for your explanation.

Tiago Ameller
tiago put_an-a-_in_a_circle sistemasc.net
Sistema, S.C.

Tim


>We had to comply with the structure and flow available
>to us with regard to the standard, and we could only add extensions that fit
>this structure and flow.

An interesting, but puzzling statement. Does this mean (as an example) that you can't have

ALTER TABLE ALTER COLUMN name1 TO name2

but could have

ALTER TABLE RENAME COLUMN name1 TO name2

or......

Roy Lambert

Roy,

<< An interesting, but puzzling statement. Does this mean (as an example)
that you can't have

ALTER TABLE ALTER COLUMN name1 TO name2

but could have

ALTER TABLE RENAME COLUMN name1 TO name2 >>

No, it means that the SQL 2003 has established a certain way in which column
alterations are done, and we have tried to follow that same pattern, which
is:

ALTER TABLE MyTable
ALTER COLUMN MyColumn <Alteration>

most likely the column renaming will look like this:

ALTER TABLE MyTable
ALTER COLUMN MyColumn RENAME TO MyNewColumn

which is patterned after the SQL 2003-compliant ALTER COLUMN options such as
setting or dropping a default expression, or changing seed values for
IDENTITY columns.

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Tim,

>most likely the column renaming will look like this:
>
>ALTER TABLE MyTable
>ALTER COLUMN MyColumn RENAME TO MyNewColumn

Does mean this you will implement column renaming in future versions?
It would be great.


Tiago Ameller
tiago put_an-a-_in_a_circle sistemasc.net
Sistema, S.C.

Tim


OK I think I see where you're coming from. I look forward to the extension.

Roy Lambert

Tiago,

<< Does mean this you will implement column renaming in future versions? It
would be great. >>

Sure, it has always been on the list, along with renaming of other objects
(tables, constraints, triggers, indexes, etc.).

--
Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com