Altering SQLite column type and adding PK constraint

Question

How to change the type of a column in a SQLite table?

I\'ve got:

    CREATE TABLE table(
        id INTEGER,
        salt TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE,
        s         


        

Answer 1

Below is an excerpt from the SQLite manual discussing the ALTER TABLE command (see URL: SQLite Alter Table):

SQLite supports a limited subset of ALTER TABLE. The ALTER TABLE command in SQLite allows the user to rename a table or to add a new column to an existing table. It is not possible to rename a colum, remove a column, or add or remove constraints from a table.

As the manual states, it is not possible to modify a column's type or constraints, such as converting NULL to NOT NULL. However, there is a work around by

1. copying the old table to a temporary table,
2. creating a new table defined as desired, and
3. copying the data from the temporary table to the new table.

To give credit where credit is due, I learned this from the discussion on Issue #1 of hakanw's django-email-usernames project on bitbucket.org.

CREATE TABLE test_table(
    id INTEGER,
    salt TEXT NOT NULL UNIQUE,
    step INT,
    insert_date TIMESTAMP
);

ALTER TABLE test_table RENAME TO test_table_temp;

CREATE TABLE test_table(
    id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,
    salt TEXT,
    step INT,
    insert_date TIMESTAMP
);

INSERT INTO test_table SELECT * FROM test_table_temp;

DROP TABLE test_table_temp;

Notes

1. I used the table name test_table since SQLite will generate an error if you try to name a table as table.
2. The INSERT INTO command will fail if your data does not conform to the new table constraints. For instance, if the original test_table contains two id fields with the same integer, you will receive an "SQL error: PRIMARY KEY must be unique" when you execute the "INSERT INTO test_table SELECT * FROM test_table_temp;" command.
3. For all testing, I used SQLite version 3.4.0 as included as part of Python 2.6.2 running on my 13" Unibody MacBook with Mac OS X 10.5.7.