HELP: Sp_help And Object Browser Report View Column Sizes Differently

Hi,

I've run into a curious problem with MS SQL Server 8.0. Using sp_help and
SQL Query Analyzer's object browser to view the columns returned by a view,
I find that sp_help is reporting stale information.

In a recent schema change, for example, someone lengthened a varchar column
from 15 to 50 characters. If we use sp_help to find out about a view that
depends upon this column, it still shows up as VARCHAR(15), whereas the
object browser correctly reports it as VARCHAR(50).

Dropping and recreating the view fixes the problem, but we have quite a few
views, and dropping and re-creating all of them any time a schema change is
made is something we want to avoid. I tried using DBCC CHECKDB in hopes that
it would 'refresh' SQL Server's information, but no luck.

(if you're curious as to why I don't just use the object browser instead,
read boring technical details below)

Has anyone seen this before? Is there some other way (other than
re-creating every view) to tell SQL Server to "refresh" it's information?

Thanks!

-Scott

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Boring Technical Information:

The reason this is an issue for us (i.e., I can't just use the object
browser instead) is that our object model classes are built using standard
metadata query methods in Java that seem to be returning the same stale
information that sp_help is returning. These methods are a part of the
standard JDK, so we can't easily fiddle with them. Anyway, as a result, our
object model (at least with respect to views) may not match our current
schema!