Will this force a reinitialize in Merge Replication Topology?

Question

I need to add a couple of columns to a table that is a part of a replication set. It is not a constraint coulumn or a part of any article filters and it allows NULL. I have a pretty good idea that I can run this --> ALTER TABLE tblPlanDomain ADD ReportWageES VARCHAR (100) NULL

and NOT force all my clients to reinitialize but I was hoping for some reassurance. Can anyone verify this one way or the other for me?

Thanks,

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EDIT

This is what I am talking about --> http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms151870.aspx

It would seem, based on that, that the answer to my question is NO but I would still like a human confirmation.

Answer 1

I can confirm that you are able to add as many columns as needed in a merge replication without reinitializing the whole replication. Instructions such as

ALTER TABLE myTable ADD myColumn myDataType Null

Will not force a reinitialisation

Instructions such as adding indexes or foreign key constraints can also be easily propogated to subscribers without reinitialisation.

In order to take benefit of these possibilities, our database replications are always initiated with a bunch of 'empty' tables (meaning tables with one primary key field only). It is then possible at any time to add fields to these tables and have them replicated to subscribers.

You could check this link for more info on adding tables\columns in a merge replication topology.