Update type of a column in liquibase

Question

I want to update the type of a column named "password". At the moment it has type NVARCHAR(40) and I want it to be of type NVARCHAR(64). This is what I did:

<changeSet id="1 - change password length" author="chris311">
    <update tableName="tablename">
        <column name="password" type="NVARCHAR(64)"/>
    </update>
</changeSet>

What else is there to do? Because this obviously does not change anything in the DB.

score 43 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 13 '13 at 00:24

43

You're using the wrong refactoring operation. Try modifyDataType

answered Sep 13 '13 at 00:24

Mark O'Connor

76,015
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score 39 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 28 '16 at 08:17

39

<changeSet id="increase-password-length" author="martin">
  <modifyDataType tableName="tablename" columnName="password" newDataType="NVARCHAR(64)"/>
</changeSet>

You can check out http://www.liquibase.org/documentation/changes/modify_data_type.html for more documentation

answered Apr 28 '16 at 08:17

Martin Rugadya

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Ehhhhrm thanks but, exactly the same was already said in the answer before!? – Chris311 Apr 28 '16 at 11:32

score 5 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 15 '17 at 09:45

5

Or you can do by using sql tag:

<changeSet author="liquibase-sql" id="example-sql" context="migrate">
    <sql dbms="mysql">
      ALTER TABLE tablename MODIFY COLUMN password NVARCHAR(64)
    </sql>
</changeSet>

answered Dec 15 '17 at 09:45

Huỳnh Tú

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score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 14 '23 at 16:00

TL;DR;

For MySQL: Use addNotNullConstraint

Explanation:

On MySQL, the pitfall is that modifyDataType is going to change the null constraint to nullable (the default). Liquibase is going to warn you about this and not doing the change. It will even give you a hint to do it by using SQL.

Using the addNotNullConstraint, in MySQL you need to give the datatype too, so you can keep your constraint and change the type.

Update type of a column in liquibase

4 Answers4