Changing a column type

Change a column type with ALTER COLUMN.

Changing column type

With ALTER COLUMN or MODIFY COLUMN you change a column's type.

ALTER TABLE products
ALTER COLUMN price TYPE DECIMAL(12,2);

This query changes price type to DECIMAL(12,2).

Type changes can cause data loss. Small to large is safe; the reverse is risky.

For example, growing VARCHAR(50) to VARCHAR(100) is safe; shrinking it to VARCHAR(10) truncates longer values or raises an error.

Change the price column type to DECIMAL(12,2).

Show example solution

ALTER TABLE products
ALTER COLUMN price TYPE DECIMAL(12,2);

Add ALTER COLUMN

ALTER TABLE products
____ price TYPE DECIMAL(12,2);

Show answer

ALTER TABLE products
ALTER COLUMN price TYPE DECIMAL(12,2);

Next lesson: DROP TABLE