Question

In my previous app release I had a table created like:

public static final String CREATE_DATABASE = "CREATE TABLE " + TABLE_NAME
        + "(_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT," + COLUMN_NAME_TITLE + " TEXT, "
        + COLUMN_NAME_LOGIN + " TEXT, " + COLUMN_NAME_PASSWORD + " TEXT, " + COLUMN_NAME_NOTES
        + " TEXT);";

In current version I have a table created like:

public static final String CREATE_DATABASE = "CREATE VIRTUAL TABLE " + TABLE_NAME + " USING fts3 "
        + "(_id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT," + COLUMN_NAME_TITLE + " TEXT, "
        + COLUMN_NAME_LOGIN + " TEXT, " + COLUMN_NAME_PASSWORD + " TEXT, " + COLUMN_NAME_NOTES
        + " TEXT, " + COLUMN_NAME_FAV + " INTEGER DEFAULT 0, " + KEY_WORD + ");";

So now it is VIRTUAL, created USING fts3 and added two new columns COLUMN_NAME_FAV and KEY_WORD.

Is that possible to ALTER the table somehow on upgrade? If not, what shall I do so users don’t lose their data?

Answer 1

It is not possible to run a simple alter command that will convert a regular table to a VIRTUAL table.

Instead of that you should:

1. Load the data from the table into the memory / copy the table.
2. DROP the old table.
3. CREATE the new table.
4. Populate the new table with the data from step 1.