Re: Reorder columns?

"harry" <a_at_abc.com> wrote in message
news:_Szpf.11612$iz3.6519_at_text.news.blueyonder.co.uk...
> thanks for the replies, think I'll just leave it as it is, doesn't cause a
> problem, just would have been neater that's all!
>

harry,

it's actually not all that unusual to add columns to a production database, as most businesses are dynamic, and most projects are scoped (new functionality gets analyzed, designed, and implemented in phases)

that being said, if your application is actually relying on the physical data order of the columns, you would want to rethink your design to avoid future problems should the underlying tables be rebuilt (which can also happen) and the column order changes. however, if you're just concerned about convenience during development that's different.

make sure, though, that none of your code relies on the physical column order, or even on the current structure of a table (ie., avoid 'select *' and 'insert into TBLX' without an explicit column list)

to neaten things up, though, you can always edit your DDL statements to reorder the columns in your deployment scripts (assuming you have a good DEV->TEST->PROD configuration)

(also, for future reference, folks in this group don't like top-posting)

++ mcs Received on Mon Dec 19 2005 - 09:46:36 CST