alter column appears to work, but doesn't?

Started by Ron Petersonover 14 years ago7 messagesgeneral
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#1Ron Peterson
rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu

I just updated a table to have a larger column size as follows.

alter table attributes_log alter column attribute_name type varchar(48);

The size was previously 24.

iddb=> \d attributes
Table "iddb.attributes"
Column | Type | Modifiers
----------------+-----------------------+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
attribute_id | uuid | not null default (encode(pgcrypto.gen_random_bytes(16), 'hex'::text))::uuid
attribute_name | character varying(48) | not null
management | character varying(24) | not null default 'by_value'::character varying

iddb=> insert into attributes ( attribute_name ) values ( 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz' );
ERROR: value too long for type character varying(24)

I'm using PostgreSQL 9.0.4

I tried to replicate this with a new database and a simple table, but
could not.

I had to drop (and then recreate) three rules and a view on this table
before altering the column.

This is a production database, so I need to treat it gently.

--
Ron Peterson
Network & Systems Administrator
Mount Holyoke College
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~rpeterso

#2Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Ron Peterson (#1)
Re: alter column appears to work, but doesn't?

Ron Peterson <rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu> writes:

I just updated a table to have a larger column size as follows.

alter table attributes_log alter column attribute_name type varchar(48);

How come this refers to "attributes_log" while your failing command is
an insert into "attributes"?

regards, tom lane

#3Ron Peterson
rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu
In reply to: Tom Lane (#2)
Re: alter column appears to work, but doesn't?

2011-09-05_15:03:00-0400 Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>:

Ron Peterson <rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu> writes:

I just updated a table to have a larger column size as follows.

alter table attributes_log alter column attribute_name type varchar(48);

How come this refers to "attributes_log" while your failing command is
an insert into "attributes"?

That was a typo, sorry. Did do the same thing on original table. I did
the same thing to attributes_log because I have rules that log data
there from my original table on insert/update/delete.

I just dropped my logging rules, stopped the database and restarted it,
put my rules back in place, and now it works. Not sure why. Cached
query plan?

--
Ron Peterson
Network & Systems Administrator
Mount Holyoke College
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~rpeterso

#4Tom Lane
tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us
In reply to: Ron Peterson (#3)
Re: alter column appears to work, but doesn't?

Ron Peterson <rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu> writes:

I just dropped my logging rules, stopped the database and restarted it,
put my rules back in place, and now it works. Not sure why. Cached
query plan?

Maybe. We'd need a reproducible test case to do more than speculate
though.

regards, tom lane

#5Ron Peterson
rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu
In reply to: Tom Lane (#4)
Re: alter column appears to work, but doesn't?

2011-09-05_16:14:00-0400 Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>:

Ron Peterson <rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu> writes:

I just dropped my logging rules, stopped the database and restarted it,
put my rules back in place, and now it works. Not sure why. Cached
query plan?

Maybe. We'd need a reproducible test case to do more than speculate
though.

Hi Tom,

I was able to reproduce this. DDL below. Probably more DDL than
necessary, but not sure what is or isn't relevant.

postgres=# drop rule attribute_insert_rule on attributes;
postgres=# drop rule attribute_update_rule on attributes;
postgres=# drop rule attribute_delete_rule on attributes;
postgres=# alter table attributes_log alter column attribute_name type varchar(50);
...then recreate rules below
postgres=# insert into attributes values ( repeat( 'x', 49 ) );
ERROR: value too long for type character varying(48)

CREATE TABLE attributes (
attribute_name
VARCHAR(48)
UNIQUE
NOT NULL
);

-- Attribute names can be inserted or deleted, but not changed.
CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION attribute_name_freeze_tf()
RETURNS TRIGGER
AS $$
BEGIN
IF (TG_OP = 'INSERT') THEN
IF NEW.attribute_name = OLD.attribute_name THEN
RETURN NEW;
END IF;
END IF;
RETURN NULL;
END;
$$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

CREATE TRIGGER attribute_name_freeze_t
BEFORE UPDATE ON attributes
FOR EACH ROW EXECUTE PROCEDURE attribute_name_freeze_tf();

CREATE TABLE attributes_log (
attribute_name
VARCHAR(48),
action
CHAR(6)
NOT NULL
CHECK( action IN ('insert', 'delete','update') ),
changed
TIMESTAMP WITH TIME ZONE
NOT NULL
DEFAULT CURRENT_TIMESTAMP
);

CREATE RULE attribute_insert_rule AS
ON INSERT TO attributes
DO
(
INSERT INTO attributes_log (
attribute_name,
action )
VALUES (
new.attribute_name,
'insert' );
);

CREATE RULE attribute_update_rule AS
ON UPDATE TO attributes
DO
(
INSERT INTO attributes_log (
attribute_name,
action )
VALUES (
new.attribute_name,
'update' );
);

CREATE RULE attribute_delete_rule AS
ON DELETE TO attributes
DO
(
INSERT INTO attributes_log (
attribute_name,
action )
VALUES (
old.attribute_name,
'delete' );
);
------------------------------------------------------------------------

--
Ron Peterson
Network & Systems Administrator
Mount Holyoke College
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~rpeterso

#6Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@aklaver.com
In reply to: Ron Peterson (#5)
Re: alter column appears to work, but doesn't?

On Monday, September 05, 2011 1:48:58 pm Ron Peterson wrote:

2011-09-05_16:14:00-0400 Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>:

Ron Peterson <rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu> writes:

I just dropped my logging rules, stopped the database and restarted it,
put my rules back in place, and now it works. Not sure why. Cached
query plan?

Maybe. We'd need a reproducible test case to do more than speculate
though.

Hi Tom,

I was able to reproduce this. DDL below. Probably more DDL than
necessary, but not sure what is or isn't relevant.

postgres=# drop rule attribute_insert_rule on attributes;
postgres=# drop rule attribute_update_rule on attributes;
postgres=# drop rule attribute_delete_rule on attributes;
postgres=# alter table attributes_log alter column attribute_name type
varchar(50); ...then recreate rules below
postgres=# insert into attributes values ( repeat( 'x', 49 ) );
ERROR: value too long for type character varying(48)

I am not seeing where you change the varchar length in the table attributes.
That is where the error is coming from.

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian.klaver@gmail.com

#7Ron Peterson
rpeterso@mtholyoke.edu
In reply to: Ron Peterson (#5)
Re: alter column appears to work, but doesn't?

Phghght. Sorry, no, that didn't do it, I was typing too fast and
skipped updating the attributes table. That was definitely not the case
w/ my original database. Wasn't working. The table definition reported
the update I made. Insert did not work. Dropping rules, restarting
database, and recreating rules got it working. Dunno.

-Ron-