Setting default attribute in ALTER TABLE

[GraeagleBill]

With the statement below, I need to set the default value to a zero length field at the time the field is created. How do I do that?



strDDL = "ALTER TABLE InstProperties ADD Column InstSerPortal Text(80)"
conBackend.Execute strDDL, dbFailOnError

Thanks,
Bill

[June7]

This thread already marked as solved. Is it?

Why are you programmatically altering table? If this is a regular occurrence, sounds like data structure is not normalized. Do you then have to modify queries, forms, reports?

[GraeagleBill]

Hi June,
As shown in the orginal post, strDDL = "ALTER TABLE InstProperties ADD Column InstSerPortal Text(80)", the initial value of the added column is NULL. That was causing some problems when the new variable was being referenced in code FOR THE FIRST TIME.

The code is in the applications set installation properties that loads up the applications global set. As the application functionality is expanded over time per client requests, it sometimes is necessary for the initialization code to make additions to the backend DB as new versions are released to the field. I.e., DB's in the field need to be updated per the new versions enhancements.
The DB's carry in their installation properties the compatibility version corresponding to the various releases of the app.

While adding "DEFAULT '' " in fact set the default attribute of the field, it did not set the newly added field to a zero-length value. I just did it manually after the record was updated to include the new field.

Bill