Any suggestions on how to change the datatype of attribute?

Robert_Krystal_(calgaryuser5_-_(deleted))

We need to change a custom attribute for a category that we have already assigned to 300,000 plus folders. It was initially set-up as an integer but we have now learned the field may have leading zeros. The problem is Livelink drops the leading zeros because the field is of integer type. This causes problems in searching as the user is expecting there to be leading zeros.I thought we could create a new text attribute, then in the DB we could write a script to copy the data from the integer field to the string field in the llattrdata table. Then I would have to write a script in builder to parse the assoc in the llattrblobdata table. I don't completely understand the attribute tables and how adding a new version would affect the procedure.Does anyone have any suggestions on how I might be able to do this? Has anyone run into this problem before?Thanks,Greg