Greenplum DB changing table column length I am new to using Greenplum DB, was working on Oracle DB. I understand conceptually Greenplum in columnar DB and has different workings then Oracle.

The question I have is regarding altering table column length. I created a table with a column with say data type character varying(50). On top of this table I created a view which is summarizing some information. Later I wanted to change the length of column to character varying(100). It is not allowed in GP.

I had to drop view, change the column length and then re-create the view. I do not believe that this was the case on Oracle. Not sure why GP has to to this.

Does someone has understanding as to how to avoid this?
It's not even about the type or subtype. Changing a column on a table requires you to drop and recreate all dependencies that reference it. You can do this in a single transaction.

CREATE TABLE foo ( a varchar(10) );
CREATE VIEW bar AS TABLE foo;

BEGIN;
  DROP VIEW bar;
  ALTER TABLE foo
    ALTER COLUMN a
    SET DATA TYPE varchar(100);
  CREATE VIEW bar AS TABLE foo;
COMMIT;