During development of my component I will install it several times into my Joomla 2.5 development site in order to test it, then make some modifications in Cook. I am unclear about reinstalling the component after it has some structural changes to the database.

Do I need to do a Joomla UNinstall first? Or can I simply install it again? Do i need to clean out the data? If so, how do I ensure a complete uninstall in Joomla 2.5?

Thanks,
Geoff

Yes, better uninstall and reinstall.
You will lose the data you inserted as test.
At some point, it could be a good idea to create a sql query that inserts the most common data, the one for the tables that won't change anymore

OK - but I was under the impression that an uninstall retains the data?

Geoff

It does not.