varchar2 columns and space question

I remember reading somewhere in my Oracle documentation that you should always put the fields that are least likely to have data last in your table definition because Oracle can make better use of space by trimming the row. Is there any truth to this? If you have a two-field table creat table mytab (

    field1 varchar2(2000),
    field2 varchar2(2000));

and, LOGICALLY, field1 contains one char of data, will the first character in field2 be at position 1 or 2001(base 0 here..) ?

I guess, in short, does oracle only use space actually needed for all varchar2 columns, or does it only do this if the following columns have no data...?

TIA, jjr_at_healhfare.com Received on Fri Feb 07 1997 - 00:00:00 CST