Re: ALTER column TYPE varying question

"Paolo Negri" <hungrylist(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> I need to increase the length of a string field using version 8.1

8.1.what?

> After executing
> ALTER TABLE mytable ALTER COLUMN mycolumn TYPE varchar(120)
> I can see the column definition correctly changes and I can insert
> rows with longer data in mycolumn.
> But when I try to update data which were in the table before the ALTER
> TABLE I get
> "ERROR: value too long for type character varying(60)"

Please provide a self-contained test case. It works in simple cases:

regression=# create table mytable (mycolumn varchar(60));
CREATE TABLE
regression=# insert into mytable values ('foo');
INSERT 0 1
regression=# ALTER TABLE mytable ALTER COLUMN mycolumn TYPE varchar(120);
ALTER TABLE
regression=# update mytable set mycolumn = repeat('x',100);
UPDATE 1
regression=#

It sounds like you have a case where the old table definition is still
reflected in a cached plan ...

regards, tom lane