title: Need clarity on hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=update
body: <p>I am using hibernate and java to create and manage relational database MySQL. Now I am stuck in the situation where tables has been created earlier and these table are containing data too.
  My current requirement is that I need to increase size of column. Earlier I have given size 50 for java.lang.String type but now I need to increase and make it 80. Is there any way in hibernate by which I can do this ?
  I can't use <strong>hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=create</strong> because it will truncate entire data in table and update it directly from database level is not feasible in my case. I don't think Need clarity on <strong>hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto=update</strong> is going to help me in this case. Please suggest if there is any way in hibernate by which I can do this. Thanks in advance.. </p>