Possible Duplicate How to make a varchar2 field shorter in Oracle In Oracle 9i and above Alter table employee MODIFY ename varchar2 10 I want to alter the column ename of table employee from varchar2 30 to varchar2 10 Case1 if the table has data having ename column containing values which are of length less than 10 char i mean it can fit in varchar2 10 comfortably - is this allowed by oracle Case 2 if the table has data having ename column containing values which are of length greater than 10 char i mean it can not fit in varchar2 10 - is this not allowed by oracle

[sql] alter the size of column in table containing data

Possible Duplicate:
How to make a varchar2 field shorter in Oracle?

In Oracle(9i and above)

 Alter table employee  
 MODIFY ename varchar2(10);

I want to alter the column ename of table employee from varchar2(30) to varchar2(10)

Case1 : if the table has data having ename column containing values which are of length less than 10 char(i mean it can fit in varchar2(10) comfortably) - is this allowed by oracle ?
Case 2: if the table has data having ename column containing values which are of length greater than 10 char(i mean it can not fit in varchar2(10)) - is this not allowed by oracle ?

This question is related to sql oracle

Case 1 : Yes, this works fine.

Case 2 : This will fail with the error ORA-01441 : cannot decrease column length because some value is too big.

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