> Dear Mr Momjian
> 
> Just a quick suggestion for an added feature:  "DROP COLUMN columnname
> FROM table..." and "ALTER COLUMN columname FROM table..." queries would
> spare my hair when I make mistakes in table creation.

We have the DROP, but will not appear in 7.0.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://www.op.net/~candle
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

Tue, 22 Feb 2000 20:23:17 -0500 (EST)
Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us>
Re: Feature Request
On Tue, Feb 22, 2000 at 08:23:17PM -0500, Bruce Momjian wrote:
> > Dear Mr Momjian
> > 
> > Just a quick suggestion for an added feature:  "DROP COLUMN columnname
> > FROM table..." and "ALTER COLUMN columname FROM table..." queries would
> > spare my hair when I make mistakes in table creation.
> 
> We have the DROP, but will not appear in 7.0.

One last little note on the whole DROP COLUMN discussion:

A snip from Phil Greenspun's photo.net site:

"Adding a column to a relational database table seldom breaks
queries. Until Oracle 8.1.5, you weren't able to drop a column."

My guess would be that Oracle found out internally  what we've been
discussing here: doing DROP COLUMN right is _hard_.

Ross
-- 
Ross J. Reedstrom, Ph.D., <reedstrm@rice.edu> 
NSBRI Research Scientist/Programmer
Computer and Information Technology Institute
Rice University, 6100 S. Main St.,  Houston, TX 77005

Wed, 23 Feb 2000 16:40:14 -0600
"Ross J. Reedstrom" <reedstrm@wallace.ece.rice.edu>
Re: [HACKERS] Re: Feature Request
At 04:40 PM 2/23/00 -0600, Ross J. Reedstrom wrote:

>"Adding a column to a relational database table seldom breaks
>queries. Until Oracle 8.1.5, you weren't able to drop a column."
>
>My guess would be that Oracle found out internally  what we've been
>discussing here: doing DROP COLUMN right is _hard_.

They ended up providing both kinds of drop that have been discussed
here, i.e. a slow one that actually mucks through the table getting
rid of physical data, and a quick one that simply marks the column
as being invisible resulting in it being ignored in the future.




- Don Baccus, Portland OR <dhogaza@pacifier.com>
  Nature photos, on-line guides, Pacific Northwest
  Rare Bird Alert Service and other goodies at
  http://donb.photo.net.

Wed, 23 Feb 2000 15:03:28 -0800
Don Baccus <dhogaza@pacifier.com>
Re: [HACKERS] Re: Feature Request