How to change the length of a DB varchar

[Cal Who]

I have an Sql Server 2005 Express DB containing the following table.

There is data in it.

Can I somehow change the description to 2000 characters while maintaining
the existing data?

Thanks

CREATE TABLE [Announcements] (

[id] [int] IDENTITY (1, 1) NOT NULL ,

[itemdate] [datetime] NOT NULL ,

[title] [varchar] (500) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NOT NULL ,

[description] [varchar] (500) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL

) ON [PRIMARY]

[SQLMenace]

use the ALTER command

alter table [Announcements] alter column [description] [varchar] (2000)

--check that it was changed
select * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
where table_name = 'Announcements'

Denis The SQL Menace
http://blogs.lessthandot.com/summary.php

" Cal Who" <Cal...@roadrunner.com> wrote in message
news:emBChXIm...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...

[Cal Who]

Thanks, worked great.

Maybe this is an aspnet question - I don't know. Some of the code is shown
below.
When the size was 500 what happened was: the command to insert was just
ignored.
That is, there was no error message but the insertion never happened.
I wonder how I can notify the user it didn't happen.
Or check myself to see if the max has been exceeded

Thanks again
<asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server" ..snip

InsertCommand="INSERT INTO Announcements(itemdate, title, description)
VALUES (@itemdate, @title, @description)"

..snip

<InsertParameters>

<asp:Parameter Name="itemdate" Type="DateTime" />

<asp:Parameter Name="title" />

<asp:Parameter Name="description" />

<asp:Parameter Name="location" />

<asp:Parameter Name="id" />

</InsertParameters>

"SQLMenace" <sqlser...@NOTgmail.com> wrote in message
news:ufmoAlI...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...

[Naomi]

On Jan 18, 5:33 pm, " Cal Who" <Cal...@roadrunner.com> wrote:
> Thanks, worked great.
>
> Maybe this is an aspnet question - I don't know. Some of the code is shown
> below.
> When the size was 500 what happened was: the command to insert was just
> ignored.
> That is, there was no error message but the insertion never happened.
> I wonder how I can notify the user it didn't happen.
> Or check myself to see if the max has been exceeded
>
> Thanks again
> <asp:SqlDataSource ID="SqlDataSource1" runat="server" ..snip
>
> InsertCommand="INSERT INTO Announcements(itemdate, title, description)
> VALUES (@itemdate, @title, @description)"
>
> ..snip
>
> <InsertParameters>
>
> <asp:Parameter Name="itemdate" Type="DateTime" />
>
> <asp:Parameter Name="title" />
>
> <asp:Parameter Name="description" />
>
> <asp:Parameter Name="location" />
>
> <asp:Parameter Name="id" />
>
> </InsertParameters>
>

> "SQLMenace" <sqlserverc...@NOTgmail.com> wrote in message

>
> news:ufmoAlI...@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>
>
>
> > use the ALTER command
>
> > alter table [Announcements] alter column [description] [varchar] (2000)
>
> > --check that it was changed
> > select * from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS
> > where table_name = 'Announcements'
>
> > Denis The SQL Menace
> >http://blogs.lessthandot.com/summary.php
>
> > "   Cal Who" <Cal...@roadrunner.com> wrote in message
> >news:emBChXIm...@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> >> I have an Sql Server 2005 Express DB containing the following table.
>
> >> There is data in it.
>
> >> Can I somehow change the description to 2000 characters while maintaining
> >> the existing data?
>
> >> Thanks
>
> >> CREATE TABLE [Announcements] (
>
> >> [id] [int] IDENTITY (1, 1) NOT NULL ,
>
> >> [itemdate] [datetime] NOT NULL ,
>
> >> [title] [varchar] (500) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NOT NULL ,
>
> >> [description] [varchar] (500) COLLATE SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS NULL
>

> >> ) ON [PRIMARY]- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Why do you have some extra parameters that are not used in your Insert
statement? It also may help to explicitly define type and size of each
parameter.

[Cal Who]

Because I'm strugling here to know what to do.
I guess you mean location and id
Is that right?

I notice that the insert command does not include id but the CREATE TABLE
does. Does that seem like a posible error to you?

>It also may help to explicitly define type and size of each
> parameter.

How is this done?

Thanks very much