Modify a Column's Type in sqlite3

Question

Hey guys, I'm pretty new to sqlite 3 and just now I had to add a column to an existing table I had. I went about doing that by doing: ALTER TABLE thetable ADD COLUMN category;.

Of course, I forgot to specify that column's type. The first thing I was thinking about doing was dropping that column and then re-adding it. However, it seems that sqlite does not have a simple way of doing this, and I would have had to backup the table and re-create it without the column.

This seems messy, and I was wondering if there were just a way of modifying/adding a column's type. I would imagine so, but my searching around yielded no results, being new to sqlite, I imagine it was due to my wording being off in the query.

Answer 1

According to the SQLite ALTER TABLE documentation, there is no alternative. You have to perform the steps you've already mentioned:

1. Rename the existing table
2. Create a new table with the correct columns and data types
3. Select the date from the old table into the new one
4. Drop the old table

Answer 2

SQLite doesn't support removing or modifying columns, apparently. But do remember that column data types aren't rigid in SQLite, either.