Models with simple-enum column type will cause TypeORM to drop and recreate the table

[hsharghi]

Issue type:

[ ] question
[ x] bug report
[ ] feature request
[ ] documentation issue

Database system/driver:

[ ] cordova
[ ] mongodb
[ ] mssql
[ ] mysql / mariadb
[ ] oracle
[ ] postgres
[ ] cockroachdb
[ x] sqlite
[ ] sqljs
[ ] react-native
[ ] expo

TypeORM version:

[ x] latest
[ ] @next
[ ] 0.x.x (or put your version here)

Steps to reproduce or a small repository showing the problem:
Create an entity with enum column type:

export enum Department {
    OFFICE = "office",
    WORKSHOP = "workshop",
}

@Entity('employees')
export class Employee {

    @PrimaryGeneratedColumn()
    id!: number;

    @Column({ nullable: true })
    employeeNumber?: string;

    @Column()
    name!: string;

    @Column({
      type: 'simple-enum',
      enum: Department,
    })
    department!: Department
}

enable logging in connection properties

{
...
  logging: 'all',
...
}

run the app, database and employees table will be created.
stop the app and re-run it.

in logs you can see

renaming column "department" in to "department"
platformTools.js:197 query: CREATE TABLE "temporary_employees" ("id" integer PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL, "employeeNumber" varchar, "name" varchar NOT NULL, "department" varchar CHECK( department IN ('office','workshop') ) NOT NULL)
platformTools.js:197 query: INSERT INTO "temporary_employees"("id", "employeeNumber", "name", "department") SELECT "id", "employeeNumber", "name", "department" FROM "employees"
platformTools.js:197 query: DROP TABLE "employees"
platformTools.js:197 query: ALTER TABLE "temporary_employees" RENAME TO "employees"
platformTools.js:206 columns changed in "employees". updating: department
platformTools.js:197 query: CREATE TABLE "temporary_employees" ("id" integer PRIMARY KEY AUTOINCREMENT NOT NULL, "employeeNumber" varchar, "name" varchar NOT NULL, "department" varchar CHECK( department IN ('office','workshop') ) NOT NULL)
platformTools.js:197 query: INSERT INTO "temporary_employees"("id", "employeeNumber", "name", "department") SELECT "id", "employeeNumber", "name", "department" FROM "employees"
platformTools.js:197 query: DROP TABLE "employees"
platformTools.js:197 query: ALTER TABLE "temporary_employees" RENAME TO "employees"

[Baksha2008]

Have the same problem with Postgres. After restart server, fields which have nullable of default recreate too

[VeeeneX]

I have same problem, but with simple-array, this looks like bug on both simple-enum and simple-array. I hope this might help:

With this entity it fails:

@Entity({ name: 'documents' })
export class DocumentEntity {
  @PrimaryGeneratedColumn('uuid')
  id?: string;

   /* This length is ignored in alter statements, see the logs bellow */
  @Column({ length: 48, nullable: true })
  token?: string

  @Column({ type: "simple-array", nullable: true })
  tags?: string[];
}

Generated table (ignore other fields):

Logs:

query: CREATE TABLE "documents" ("id" uuid NOT NULL DEFAULT uuid_generate_v4(), "docId" integer, "name" character varying(200) NOT NULL, "mimeType" character varying(60) NOT NULL, "token" character varying(48), "tags" text, "user_id" integer, CONSTRAINT "PK_ac51aa5181ee2036f5ca482857c" PRIMARY KEY ("id"))
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" DROP COLUMN "tags"
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" ADD "tags" text
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" ADD "userId" integer
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" DROP COLUMN "name"
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" ADD "name" character varying(100) NOT NULL
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" DROP COLUMN "mimeType"
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" ADD "mimeType" character varying(30) NOT NULL
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" DROP COLUMN "token"
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" ADD "token" character varying(36)
query: ALTER TABLE "documents" ADD CONSTRAINT "FK_c7481daf5059307842edef74d73" FOREIGN KEY ("user_id") REFERENCES "users"("id") ON DELETE NO ACTION ON UPDATE NO ACTION
query: COMMIT

Another entity, but now it generated token correctly:

@Entity({ name: 'registrations' })
export class Registration {
  /* Works just fine */
  @Column({ length: 48 })
  token?: string
}

[Flusinerd]

Any eta on when the fix will be released?
We are just starting a new project and would require this to work.
Running mssql.