Re: Updating pg_attribute to change field's data type from integer to bigint on very large table

Hi Jeff,

read carefully, he said it does stuff ON DISK, which means that all of your
fields must be physically remade (so it a lot more than telling it "it's an
int4, Sheila", which is what just modifying the catalog would do). Since
you are not a dba be aware that you are producing a new record for each of
the existing ones, and thus bloating things quite a bit. You may want to
vacuum it asap :)

Bèrto

On 13 April 2012 16:30, Jeff Adams <jeff(dot)adams(at)noaa(dot)gov> wrote:

> so i can? if so, how do i go about? i should mention that, while i dabble
> in postgres dba activity, it is not my day job...
>
>
> On Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
>
>> I wrote:
>> > No, that is an actual on-disk change (making the field physically
>> > wider), so it's going to cost ya. There are some cases where the
>> > on-disk representation doesn't change and so a catalog update isn't
>> > needed, but int4->int8 isn't one of them.
>>
>> Sheesh, hit send too quickly on that. Of course I meant "and so a
>> catalog update is all that's needed".
>>
>> regards, tom lane
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Jeffrey D. Adams
> National Marine Fisheries Service
> Office of Protected Resources
> 1315 East West Hwy, Building SSMC3
> Silver Spring, MD 20910-3282
> phone: (301) 427-8434
> fax: (301) 713-0376
>

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