Try putting that code into the query pane in SQL Workbench and see what it indicates. It, like most SQL utilities has a kind of code checker which will hilite any problems with the sql syntax. Bob On Aug 18, 2012, at 10:13 AM, Dr. Hawkins wrote: > However, > > START TRANSACTION; > ALTER TABLE dna ADD chrType CHAR(1); > COMMIT; > > This, though, produces the error