Decreased Column Length May Truncate Data

If you decrease the length of a column, make sure the reduced column length does not result in truncated data.

For example, although you can use alter table to reduce the length of the title column of the titles table from a varchar(80) to a varchar(2), doing so renders the data meaningless:

select title from titles
title
-----
Bu
Co
Co
Em
Fi
Is
Li
Ne
On
Pr
Se
Si
St
Su
Th
Th
Th
Yo

SAP ASE issues error messages about truncating the column data only if the set string_rtruncation option is turned on. If you need to truncate character data, set the appropriate string-truncation option and modify the column to decrease its length.