Re: Informix limitations, should we be using Oracle?
Date: Thu, 17 Oct 2002 11:34:06 +1000
Message-ID: <3dae1472_1_at_news.iprimus.com.au>
Obnoxio The Clown wrote:
>
> 255 byte limit on varchar fields -- still true (I think)
>
One point that should be shared with Oraclers regarding varchars on Informix...
I've noticed that Oraclers are obsessed with using varchars of one kind or another, and from what I read about the page allocation strategies, it is indeed worthwhile to use them in Oracle.
However, with informix, plain old CHAR types are highly optimised (in the engine and the way they are handled, I mean), and they also behave very varcharish anyway. Trailing blanks are disregarded amongst other things, and Informix varchars miss out on some high-performance optimisations. In a typical database, the wasted space is far less than you might imagine... So if you ever dabble with Informix, it really is OK to abandon varchars for CHARs. Just a small cultural difference to adapt to. Received on Thu Oct 17 2002 - 03:34:06 CEST