Background

How can I change an attribute from one data type to another?

In the simplest cases like increasing the length of a String column, xDM will alter the physical columns for you automatically when re-deploying the data location.

Here's a more interesting case. We deploy a model with the attribute GeocodedAddress.Quality with type String(128). Later we realize that a more appropriate data type would be Integer.

Standard solution

1. Drop your tables.
2. Redeploy.

This is a solid solution. It will always work.

But at development time it can be a hassle to lose all data and then re-load.

Alternate solution

1. Directly alter your tables.
2. Redeploy.

This is a nice time saver at development time. It's not recommended for a production data location.

Sample SQL to alter tables (PostgreSQL syntax shown):

alter table SA_ADDRESS_CACHE alter column GEOQUALITY type decimal(10,0) using GEOQUALITY::decimal(10,0) ;
alter table GX_ADDRESS_CACHE alter column GEOQUALITY type decimal(10,0) using GEOQUALITY::decimal(10,0) ;
alter table GD_ADDRESS_CACHE alter column GEOQUALITY type decimal(10,0) using GEOQUALITY::decimal(10,0) ;
/* Of course this will fail if your data contains non-numeric values. That shouldn't surprise anyone. */