Re: CHAR v. VARCHAR2: Space or Performance Optimization

From: jared still <jkstill_at_teleport.com>
Date: 1997/07/12
Message-ID: <33c7ae7e.237712911@news.teleport.com>#1/1

On Fri, 11 Jul 1997 17:21:19 -0700, Paul Tuckfield <Sorry_at_no.email.anyways.org> wrote:

>In principle, varchar2 should save space and inprove performance, but
>I have no quantative data to back this up. The reason:
>- save space: The space used to hold length info is probably less
> than the space wasted in fixed fields that are padded out to the
> full width

I don't agree. Consider names for example. The average length of surnames in the U.S. is about 7 characters. Will all surnames in your database fit in 7 characters. Allow 20 to fit 99.9% of them.

With a length byte, that is an average of 8 bytes plus overhead ( 2 bytes in this case I believe).

10 bytes vs. 20 bytes. It adds up in a large database. Received on Sat Jul 12 1997 - 00:00:00 CDT