Re: whic one to choose

I would think that their behavior is laziness. When you create a form they have a nice neat filed length to use to display their data in. I would think that you would only use char these days for items that have a known fixed length, Social security number, phone number, zip or postcode. All other data you want to store in char format would be in varchar as it uses space in your database more efficiently.

You will encounter no problems with doing it this way

Peter

At 07:25 PM 11/07/2001, you wrote:
>The definition of char and varchar2 is clear from docu that one is used for
>fixed length and the other for variable.
>We are reviewing one database desgin given to use from our developers in
>that they have chosen to use CHAR(n)
>data types at many places, even though the field can have variable lenght
>data.
>For example for a column as region_code it is set as char(5) not this value
>can be '01' , 'CEN','WEST' etc
>would it be wise to make it varhar2(5).
>The reason is that if you want to query the colum in a where clause (if you
>have chosen char(5)) then I think
>you have post fix spaces unnecessarily right? (where region_code = '01
>'
>becuase region_code = '01' would return no rows.
>
>1)
>Any ones has any suggestions on how to choose char and varchar2 for columsn
>that are small in lenght like < 30 characters and unsire of its fixed or
>variable?
>
>2)
>Is there any implication if we convert all those small lenght columsn for
>which we are not sure of data-lenght from char to varchar2???any side
>affects in making varch2?
>
>Regards
>
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