How do I update the views user_tab_columns and dba_tab_columns?

I am using Oracle 9.

I am trying to use a select command to find out info about the columns
in some tables - their data_type, data_length and whether they are
nullable.

"Greg Bailey" <climbingmercury (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk> wrote

You don't -- the RDBMS does when you issue DDL (data definition language)
statements, like CREATE TABLE, ALTER TABLE, etc.

++ mcs

climbingmercury (AT) yahoo (DOT) co.uk (Greg Bailey) wrote in message news:<b50df850.0409130230.78e5b8 (AT) posting (DOT) google.com>...
Hmm. Try rerunning the query?

I assume you mean REFRESHING the data you see versus trying to UPDATE
those views. The data should not change much, so why you'd have
problems seeing the most recent values might be due to something else
(maybe your session privileges).

HTH,
ed

Greg Bailey wrote:

Based on the wording, you seem to have a misconception about views and/or
the data dictionary. I don't quite understand your problem.

Hopefully you understand the difference between the 'user_' and the 'dba_'
views? (And hopefully you understand what a view actually is!)

/Hans

I was misunderstanding some of the values in the view it appears.

I had assumed that data_length was the length of data in the column,
but this doesn't apply to numbers, where data_precision is the field I
want (as far as I can tell).

Thanks
Greg