Re: CHAR vs VARCHAR2

If you use a CHAR the database will hold that number of characters for the field no matter how many you actually store in the field. This is generally good for standardized information, 2 character codes and that sort of thing. VARCHARs will only allocate space for exactly how many characters are entered, thus lendeing very well to free text fields. I do however thing there is a performance difference in indexing the two however, I think VARCHAR2 indexes the best, but you would have to check that out a little more. Hope that helps.

Jason

Lee Miller wrote:

> Does anyone have a good link to the caveats of using VARCHAR2 in place of
> CHAR, and what general guidelines there are for when you should use which.
Received on Tue Feb 06 2001 - 19:33:31 CET