Re: Database compression..?

From: Chris Hamilton <ToneCzar_at_erols.com>
Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 18:29:01 GMT
Message-ID: <370ba1fe.17020564@news.erols.com>

On Wed, 7 Apr 1999 18:04:17 +0100, "Jonathan Lewis" <jonathan_at_jlcomp.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>The last time I checked it (7.3.3.5 I think), a null CHAR
>was stored as a null, not as a string of chr(32). So the
>total cost of storing a non-trailing null CHAR as just
>the one-byte 'length byte'.

I stand corrected (I'm sitting actually).

In a slightly different case, though, if someone stores 'xxx' in a varchar2 column, it's 3 bytes, but the same 'xxx' gets stored as 5 bytes in a char column. So the savings can be significant.

Chris

---

Christopher Hamilton
Oracle DBA -- Wall Street Sports
chris_at_wallstreetsports.com
http://www.wallstreetsports.com/ Received on Wed Apr 07 1999 - 13:29:01 CDT