Oracle revisited

I have been informed by our resident Oracle lurker, a well placed individual who either did not want to start another flame war, thanks, or did not want to be identified at all, that Oracle 8i does indeed do in-place ALTER TABLEs. At least I think that was what he was trying to show me with a rather cryptic session showing a table with a significant number of rows ALTERED to add a new column in under a second. So in the interest of open and honest discussion I am setting the record straight. How's that M.T.? Art S. Kagel

Problem being Art, is that you can alter table add column to a database pre-8i. I think where the confusion has been resulting in the posting of Oracle not being able to "ADD" columns, is that not until 8i could you DROP a column. "Art S. Kagel" wrote: > I have been informed by our resident Oracle lurker, a well placed individual > who either did not want to start another flame war, thanks, or did not want > to be identified at all, that Oracle 8i does indeed do in-place ALTER > TABLEs. At least I think that was what he was trying to show me with a > rather cryptic session showing a table with a significant number of rows > ALTERED to add a new column in under a second. So in the interest of open > and honest discussion I am setting the record straight. How's that M.T.? > > Art S. Kagel