How do I alter the precision of a decimal column in Sql Server?

Question

Is there a way to alter the precision of an existing decimal column in Sql Server?

Answer 1

There may be a better way, but you can always copy the column into a new column, drop it and rename the new column back to the name of the first column.

to wit:

ALTER TABLE MyTable ADD NewColumnName DECIMAL(16, 2);
GO

UPDATE  MyTable
SET     NewColumnName = OldColumnName;
GO

ALTER TABLE CONTRACTS DROP COLUMN OldColumnName;
GO


EXEC sp_rename
    @objname = 'MyTable.NewColumnName',
    @newname = 'OldColumnName',
    @objtype = 'COLUMN'
GO

This was tested on SQL Server 2008 R2, but should work on SQL Server 2000+.