Oracle / PLSQL: ORA-01449 Error Message

Learn the cause and how to resolve the ORA-01449 error message in Oracle.

Description

When you encounter an ORA-01449 error, the following error message will appear:

• ORA-01449: column contains NULL values; cannot alter to NOT NULL

Cause

You tried to execute a ALTER TABLE MODIFY command to change a column from NULL to NOT NULL, but the column currently contains NULL values in one or more records.

Resolution

The option(s) to resolve this Oracle error are:

Option #1

Either delete the records that contain NULL values or perform an UPDATE to change the NULL values to non-NULL values.