Re: Informix column change column type from char to int

You would need to run appropriate UPDATE statements to get rid of the alpha characters in that column before running the ALTER TABLE. Once you've eliminated all alpha characters, the ALTER TABLE will work. By itself, you can't do an ALTER TABLE from alpha to int if there are non-numeric characters in the column. seema2@my-dejanews.com wrote in message >I need help with this scenario. In our Informix database I need to change a >column from char(200) to integer. This column is also part of an index. The >data would be a hash value of type integer rather than a character format as >it is now. > >My question is: Can I implement this with an ALTER TABLE statement? Or would I >need to do some form of unload/load to accomplish this. How should I handle >existing values of the column?