Adding a column - Column oder a concern?

[Chris Cobb]

I have a table that currently contains 718000 rows. I wish to add a
column to the table. Adding this column anywhere other than the end of
the table requires exporting data, a drop and recreate, then a
re-import of data. Is there any disadvantage to adding this column to
the end of the table. Will this fragment the table. Is a reorg needed?

Thanks,

- CBC

[Serge Rielau]

Chris,

In reality there is no difference.
In theory (or when running a benchmark where 0.1% are a measure of
success) there are. Tuning the column ordering is not worth your money.

Cheers
Serge

[Mark]

cb****@gmail.com (Chris Cobb) wrote in message news:<fc************************@posting.google.co m>...

I have a table that currently contains 718000 rows. I wish to add a
column to the table. Adding this column anywhere other than the end of
the table requires exporting data, a drop and recreate, then a
re-import of data. Is there any disadvantage to adding this column to
the end of the table. Will this fragment the table. Is a reorg needed?

Thanks,

- CBC

Generally there is no problem adding a column to the end of a table.
The space is not actually allocated until you insert/udpdate the row,
or do a reorg. It is generally better to do a reorg before doing large
updates to the table with a new column, since the old row will usually
not fit back in the same space as the row before the new data is
added.