How do I alter the precision of a decimal column in Sql Server?

Is there a way to alter the precision of an existing decimal column in Sql Server?

Solution 1:

ALTER TABLE Testing ALTER COLUMN TestDec decimal(16,1)

Just put decimal(precision, scale), replacing the precision and scale with your desired values.

I haven't done any testing with this with data in the table, but if you alter the precision, you would be subject to losing data if the new precision is lower.

Solution 2:

There may be a better way, but you can always copy the column into a new column, drop it and rename the new column back to the name of the first column.

to wit:

ALTER TABLE MyTable ADD NewColumnName DECIMAL(16, 2);
GO

UPDATE  MyTable
SET     NewColumnName = OldColumnName;
GO

ALTER TABLE CONTRACTS DROP COLUMN OldColumnName;
GO


EXEC sp_rename
    @objname = 'MyTable.NewColumnName',
    @newname = 'OldColumnName',
    @objtype = 'COLUMN'
GO

This was tested on SQL Server 2008 R2, but should work on SQL Server 2000+.

How do I alter the precision of a decimal column in Sql Server?

Solution 1:

Solution 2:

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