# Updating column (migration)

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/updating-column-migration/182299>\
**Category:** Rails\
**Created:** [January 26, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/updating-column-migration/182299 "2010-01-26T10:13:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![eggie5](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/7c8e57/32.png) [@eggie5](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/eggie5)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 10:13am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/updating-column-migration/182299/1 "2010-01-26T10:13:27Z")

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I have a column in a postgres database that keeps track of a date, but  
for some reason I set it up to use a timestamp, ie. my migration says  
t.datetime :start\_date but I want to switch this to the date type for  
my existing table. How can I do this using migrations?

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**Author:** ![eggie5](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/7c8e57/32.png) [@eggie5](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/eggie5)\
**Post date:** [January 26, 2010, 10:17am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/updating-column-migration/182299/2 "2010-01-26T10:17:33Z")

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See [Active Record Migrations — Ruby on Rails Guides](http://guides.rubyonrails.org/migrations.html), particularly the  
change\_column command

Simon

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![eggie5](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/e/7c8e57/32.png) [@eggie5](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/eggie5)\
**Post date:** [January 27, 2010, 12:16pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/updating-column-migration/182299/3 "2010-01-27T12:16:00Z")

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thank you this was the trick