feature request - adding columns with default value

hello,

when doing an "alter table blub add column blah int2"
and then issuing an "alter table blub alter column blah set default 0"
I will always have to manually "update blub set blah=0" to initialize
all existing records.... this is quite annoying while performing this
update on a running database with 100 simultaneous clients accessing
the database and about 443482 rows in the table.

it takes about 10 minutes to perform this update, and for about 6 minutes
all other updates to the table are in status "waiting", this leads to
a very high load and all max_connection setting is reached soon
(on a Dual-Xeon 2.4 GHz machine with 2 GB RAM)

i would suggest to change the "alter table add column" function to
adding a default value while adding the column if this is possible
and if this minimizes "down-time".

thank you

--

Mit freundlichem Gruß

Henrik Steffen
Geschäftsführer

top concepts Internetmarketing GmbH
Am Steinkamp 7 - D-21684 Stade - Germany
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