[SOLVED] Probably Beyond Stupid Question About Type

[chinclub]

The site I am running now is my first experience with PHP and SQL.  The script came with automatic table setup in the database.  The site has been live for 3 months and now we learn that there is a cap on the amount of points people can have.  I looked at the database and it is set up with that field as type int(11).

 

Common sense is telling me I can just edit that field and change the 11 to like 100 and never have to worry about it again.  Am I right that this will fix the problem?  And since this is a live site will changing the type field hurt the data already stored in that field in the table?

 

I know that I should backup the database before I make changes but my problem is that the site is so big and I am on dial-up that it takes about 1 hour for me to make the backup and in an hour a lot of people have already logged in and done stuff. 

 

I want to be sure I take every precaution to be sure I am doing the right thing before I go messing with the database.

 

Thanks for your patience with this very newbie question!

[AndyB]

INT - the signed range is -2147483648 to 2147483647. The unsigned range is 0 to 4294967295.

 

http://www.xnote.com/howto/mysql_field_types.html

 

I guess you're using really big numbers, and it won't hurt to increase 11 to something a BIT larger

 

 

[chinclub]

Thanks for that link.  It looks like I might need to have used BIGINT instead.  Can I change the type to that using Edit Field without hurting the info in that field?

[AndyB]

Yes

[chinclub]

THANKS!!