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How do I copy and truncate date to another column?
I need to copy the data from one column in a table to another column in the same table. The table I am copying to has a character limit of 10 and some of the data in the table I am copying from has more than 10 characters. I want to copy the data and truncate it so it does not exceed the 10 character limit. How can I do this?
hi - this should do it I think: UPDATE dbo.TableName SET NewColumn = LEFT(OldColumn,10)
I think that @mjharper has the correct answer, however I would ask why would you want to truncate the data? Won't you be missing some potentially viable data? I don't know your environment or specifics, but can you not expand the target column to match the size of the source column? NOTE: There can be gotchas with doing this so testing would be crucial. Just a thought.
Yes, mj harpers soluiton does work. John Moorehouse, the data is not pimary data but more of an alias to the data I am copying. The data is relevant to the user name and the table I am copying to is relevant to initials. The column I am copying form is unique and the column I am copying to needs t be unique intials. this will keep the user identifiable and unique
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