ALTER TABLE / ALTER COLUMN

So how do you change a column type in SQL CE? Going back to 2.0, there was no built-in support in the SQL language. The ALTER TABLE / ALTER COLUMN options were restricted to adding or dropping the default value, or changing the IDENTITY column properties.

If you compare the 2.0 BOL with the 3.0 BOL you see no difference. The same syntax is supported with the same limitations. Well, actually not.

With SQL CE 3.0 you can change a column data type using an ALTER TABLE command. The Syntax is very simple:

ALTER TABLE table ALTER COLUMN column type

I just got a confirmation from Microsoft that this is missing from the documentation so you should see it included in future versions.

Implications of this discovery are very important to me, especially for the SQL CE table editor in Data Port Console (now in Draft 11):

1. Editing tables for SQL CE 3.0 just got easier. Instead of recreating a table every time a user requests a change in column data types, I only need to generate an appropriate SQL command and I'm done with it.
2. Now, how do I keep backwards compatibility with SQL CE 2.0? Well, I don't. When using the SQL CE 2.0 engine the Console code will have to recreate the table (and hope the user has the missing msdadc.dll on the device - a highly unlikely scenario).

Back to the VS2005 editor...