Resize a column in a table containing data

Question

Possible duplicate:
How to make varchar2 field shorter in Oracle?

In Oracle (9i and above)

Alter table employee MODIFY ename varchar2(10); 

I want to change the table employee column name from varchar2 (30) to varchar2 (10)

• Case1: if there is data in the table that has an ename column whose length is less than 10 char (I mean that it can comfortably fit in varchar2 (10)) - is this allowed by the oracle?

• Case 2: if there is data in the table containing an ename column that is longer than 10 char (I mean that it cannot fit in varchar2 (10)) - is this not allowed by the oracle?

Answer 1

Case 1: Yes, it works great.

Case 2: Error with error ORA-01441: cannot reduce the column length because some value is too large.

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