Trouble updating new column after adding it - sql

Given the following SQL:
IF EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.columns WHERE name = 'NewFieldName' AND object_id = OBJECT_ID('dbo.MyTableName'))
RETURN
-- Add NewFieldName column to part of the Summer 2012 release cycle.
ALTER TABLE dbo.[MyTableName] ADD
[NewFieldName] SmallINT NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT DF_MyTableName_NewFieldName DEFAULT (2)
UPDATE [MyTableName] SET NewFieldName = 1 WHERE [Name] = 'FindMe' --Update one specific value
Produces the following error message:
Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 10 Invalid column name
'NewFieldName'.
I'm sure I'm missing something basic, but trying to put "GO" after the alter makes the UPDATE run everytime and I don't want to do that.
How can I structure this statement so that it will check to see if the column exists and, if it doesn't add it and then set the values as stated in my UPDATE statements?

You need the statement referencing the new column to be compiled after the new column is added. One way of doing this is to run it as a child batch with EXEC.
IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT *
FROM sys.columns
WHERE name = 'NewFieldName'
AND object_id = OBJECT_ID('dbo.MyTableName'))
BEGIN
-- Add NewFieldName column to part of the Summer 2012 release cycle.
ALTER TABLE dbo.[MyTableName]
ADD [NewFieldName] SMALLINT NOT NULL
CONSTRAINT DF_MyTableName_NewFieldName DEFAULT (2)
EXEC(' UPDATE [MyTableName] SET NewFieldName = 1 WHERE [Name] = ''FindMe''')
END
The reason it worked for you originally is presumably because the table itself did not exist when the batch was compiled thus meaning that all statements in it referencing the table are subject to deferred compile.

Related

Cannot add NOT NULL constraint [duplicate]

So I want to change a column in my SQL Server database to not allow nulls, but I keep getting an error. this is the sql statement I am using:
alter table [dbo].[mydatabase] alter column WeekInt int not null
and this is the error I am getting :
Msg 515, Level 16, State 2, Line 1
Cannot insert the value NULL into column 'WeekInt', table 'CustomerRadar.dbo.tblRWCampaignMessages'; column does not allow nulls. UPDATE fails.
The statement has been terminated.
I'm pretty sure my sql is right, and there are no nulls currently in the column I am trying to change so I am really not sure as to what is causing the problem. Any ideas? I'm stumped.
Clearly, the table has NULL values in it. Which you can check with:
select *
from mydatabase
where WeekInt is NULL;
Then, you can do one of two things. Either change the values:
update mydatabase
set WeekInt = -1
where WeekInt is null;
Or delete the offending rows:
delete from mydatabase
where WeekInt is null;
Then, when all the values are okay, you can do the alter table statement.
If you are trying to change a column to not null, and you are getting this error message, yet it appears the column has no nulls, ensure you are checking for is null and not = null (which gives different results).
Select * from ... where column is null
instead of
Select * from ... where column = null
I am adding this because it tripped me up and took a while to resolve.
This will work. You should send a default value, then it will change all the previous record to -1 in this example.
alter table [dbo].[mydatabase] alter column WeekInt int not null DEFAULT '-1';

Check if column exists then alter column from the table?

I want to write sql script that should check if column exists in the table, and then remove the column if previous statement is true. The database I use is Sybase ASE, and this is the code that I tried to use:
IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM syscolumns WHERE id = object_id('users') AND name = 'maiden_name')
BEGIN
ALTER TABLE security DROP maiden_name
END
The code above executed successfully first time I run it. The second time I goth the error:
Invalid column name 'maiden_name'
If column does not exist the ALTER TABLE block of code shouldn't run. Is there a way to achieve this is Sybase? Thank you.
You can use dynamic SQL:
IF EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM syscolumns WHERE id = object_id('users') AND name = 'maiden_name')
BEGIN
EXEC('ALTER TABLE security DROP maiden_name')
END;
The problem is that the parser is trying to parse the ALTER during the compilation phase, and it gets an error if the column does not exist.

SQL Code Evaluation stopping a valid transaction

As part of the company I am working for at the moment I need to create some database upgrade scripts to replace some work of a previous contractor.
The code before the following block runs, creates the new ID column, and then this script looks to populate the values and then drop some columns.
IF EXISTS (
SELECT *
FROM sys.columns
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp]')
AND name = 'Name')
and
EXISTS (
SELECT *
FROM sys.columns
WHERE object_id = OBJECT_ID(N'[Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp]')
AND name = 'Code')
BEGIN
UPDATE
[Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp]
SET
CompetencyId = rc.Id
FROM
[Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp] rlc
INNER JOIN
[Core.Lookup].ReportCompetency rc
ON
rc.Code = rlc.Code and rc.Name = rlc.Name
ALTER TABLE [Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp] DROP COLUMN CODE
ALTER TABLE [Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp] DROP COLUMN [Name]
ALTER TABLE [Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp] DROP COLUMN [Description]
END
GO
When running the if exists \ not exists checks and then select getdate() this works perfeclty fine and gives me the result I expect.
However, when I run the code block above I get error
Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 23
Invalid column name 'Code'.
Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 23
Invalid column name 'Name'.
This script it part of a larger upgrade script and is used in a system calle RoundHouse https://github.com/chucknorris/roundhouse which is the system chosen by the company.
Prior to the above if exists check,
IF (SELECT COUNT(1) FROM sys.columns
WHERE OBJECT_ID = OBJECT_ID('[Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp]')
AND Name in ('Name','Code')) = 2
which also gave the same issue. I have five tables that I need to update and this is going to stop the team from working if I cant resolve this at my next PR
What can I do in order to stop this from causing the upgrade scripts to fail?
EDIT -- The reason I am linking on varchar fields also is because the previous developer did not create relationships between tables, and was just inserting strings into tables rather than relating by ID causing the potential for unlinked \ inconsistent data.
The table edit prior to this creates the new id column, and this script is getting the value and dropping columns that are no longer needed
SQL Server will parse the whole of the statement prior to execution, so the exists check does not protect you from the update being parsed. If the column has already been dropped, that makes the statement invalid and you get a parse error. The update statement would have to be executed as dynamic SQL, sp_execute basically so that the varchar of the update is not directly parsed.
For SQL Server 2016 and above the drop column can be protected a bit more as well:
ALTER TABLE [Central].[Core.Report].[ReportLessonComp] DROP COLUMN IF EXISTS CODE

How do I get rid of an orphaned default constraint in T-SQL?

I am trying to create a script in order to create a table in SQL Express 2008 R2, like so:
IF (EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.tables WHERE name='Table' AND [type]='U')) BEGIN
DROP TABLE Table
END
GO
CREATE TABLE Table (
col DATETIMEOFFSET CONSTRAINT DF_Table_col DEFAULT GETUTCDATE()
)
GO
I am trying to follow the practice of creating a script that can be re-executed for this release cycle of my project.
But the problem is that I forgot to drop the default constraint DF_Table_col before dropping the table "Table", which I would write as:
IF (EXISTS (SELECT * FROM sys.default_constraints WHERE name='DF_Table_col')) BEGIN
ALTER TABLE Table DROP CONSTRAINT DF_Table_col
END
GO
Now if I try to re-run the script, I get the following error:
Msg 2714, Level 16, State 5, Line 1
There is already an object named 'DF_Table_col' in the database.
Msg 1750, Level 16, State 0, Line 1
Could not create constraint. See previous errors.
How do I get rid of the orphaned constraint DF_Table_col?
I tried to bind this orphan back to a new table by the same name, like so:
exec sp_bindefault 'DF_Table_col', 'Table.col'
but it gives me the following error:
Msg 15050, Level 11, State 1, Procedure sp_bindefault, Line 108
Cannot bind default 'DF_Table_col'. The default must be created using the CREATE DEFAULT statement.
as far as DF_Table_col will be deleted if 'Table' is deleted and it belong to 'Table' there might be 'DF_Table_col'. on an other Table.
If you don't care about the name you can use
CREATE TABLE Table (
col DATETIMEOFFSET DEFAULT GETUTCDATE()
)
GO

Invalid column name on sql server update after column create

Does anyone see what's wrong with this code for SQL Server?
IF NOT EXISTS(SELECT *
FROM sys.columns
WHERE Name = 'OPT_LOCK'
AND object_ID = Object_id('REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK'))
BEGIN
ALTER TABLE REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK
ADD OPT_LOCK NUMERIC(10, 0)
UPDATE REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK
SET OPT_LOCK = 0
ALTER TABLE REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK
ALTER COLUMN OPT_LOCK NUMERIC(10, 0) NOT NULL
END;
When I run this, I get:
Msg 207, Level 16, State 1, Line 3
Invalid column name 'OPT_LOCK'.
on the update command.
Thanks.
In this case you can avoid the problem by adding the column as NOT NULL and setting the values for existing rows in one statement as per my answer here.
More generally the problem is a parse/compile issue. SQL Server tries to compile all statements in the batch before executing any of the statements.
When a statement references a table that doesn't exist at all the statement is subject to deferred compilation. When the table already exists it throws an error if you reference a non existing column. The best way round this is to do the DDL in a different batch from the DML.
If a statement both references a non existing column in an existing table and a non existent table the error may or may not be thrown before compilation is deferred.
You can either submit it in separate batches (e.g. by using the batch separator GO in the client tools) or perform it in a child scope that is compiled separately by using EXEC or EXEC sp_executesql.
The first approach would require you to refactor your code as an IF ... cannot span batches.
IF NOT EXISTS(SELECT *
FROM sys.columns
WHERE Name = 'OPT_LOCK'
AND object_ID = Object_id('REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK'))
BEGIN
ALTER TABLE REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK
ADD OPT_LOCK NUMERIC(10, 0)
EXEC('UPDATE REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK SET OPT_LOCK = 0');
ALTER TABLE REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK
ALTER COLUMN OPT_LOCK NUMERIC(10, 0) NOT NULL
END;
The root cause of the error is the newly added column name is not reflected in the sys.syscolumns and sys.columns table until you restart SQL Server Management Studio.
For your information,you can replace the IF NOT EXISTS with the COL_LENGTH function. It takes two parameters,
Table Name and
Column you are searching for
If the Column is found then it returns the range of the datatype of the column Ex: Int (4 bytes), when not found then it returns a NULL.
So, you could use this as follows and also combine 3 Statements into one.
IF (SELECT COL_LENGTH('REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK','OPT_LOCK')) IS NULL
BEGIN
ALTER TABLE REP_DSGN_SEC_GRP_LNK
ADD OPT_LOCK NUMERIC(10, 0) NOT NULL DEFAULT 0
END;
Makes it simpler.