Can't ALTER a column to have a new DEFAULT value.

• Key: DERBY-168
• Type: Bug
• Status: Closed
• Resolution: Fixed
• Priority: Minor
• Assignee: Unassigned
• Reporter: George Baklarz
• Component/s: Documentation
• Affects Version/s: 10.0.2.0
• Fix Version/s: 10.1.1.0

Description

Documentation states that an existing column in a table can have a DEFAULT value added via the ALTER TABLE statement. Unfortunately, none of the syntax provided gives a way of accomplishing this. An equivalent command from DB2 would be:

ALTER TABLE EMPL ALTER COLUMN BONUS SET DEFAULT 1000;

Is this an error in the documentation, and omission in the product, or is there a different command to accomplish this?

Comments

I believe the documentation is wrong here...Derby doesn't have the capability to add a default using ALTER TABLE. We need to fix the documentation.

However, I would suggest filing an Improvement request to add this feature to Derby. I think Derby could use this enhancement and I would be happy to work with any contributor interested in trying to put a patch together.

This feature would expose any contributor to each of the parser, query binder and execution modules but doesn't involve too many changes to each of these. Good improvement to attempt.

[Jeff Levitt]

This derby168.diff patch removes the references decribed in the ALTER TABLE description. If the code for doing this is contributed later on, we can always re-insert the descriptions.

[Jean T. Anderson]

Patch committed revision 169669.

[Jeff Levitt]

Fixed in 10.1.0.0