Re: substring implementation (long string)

Scott Cain wrote:
> Thanks--that looks like exactly what I need.  Here's a related question:
> when I do the alter table, is there a way I can make it "retroactive".
> That is, I ran the alter table, and nothing happened.  I expected the
> storage space for the database to jump, and for it to take a while to do
> it, but it did not.  So I am guessing that the alter table only applies
> to new data put in.  Is there a way to make it apply to all the data
> already in the column, short of dropping the table and reloading it.
> Dropping and reloading is unattractive because of several foreign key
> constraints on this table.
>

You probably could do something like:

UPDATE mytable SET somefield = somefield;

Joe