Re: Why are data types size limited?

From: <eison_at_cc.gatech.edu>
Date: 2000/03/20
Message-ID: <8b63nm$91n@catapult.gatech.edu>#1/1

joe_celko_at_my-deja.com wrote:

:>> From an ignorant-user standpoint, they {SQL databases} are great

: except for field size limitations ... Why is this? Why can't databases
: be written to handle arbitrarily long strings, and grow or shrink all
: input fields as needed? <<

: The specs do not talk about internal representation of data types in
: the SQL database, only scale and precision, character sets, and other
: abstract things. The reason is that you never directly see SQL data!!

This does not seem to explain to me why variable-length fields (particularly strings) of unrestricted (or even relatively unrestricted) size are not supported (or at least not well/transparently supported).

-David

-- 
David Eison      (404) 892-6579 x 212     <http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~eison>
Brother, Phi Kappa Theta Fraternity

Received on Mon Mar 20 2000 - 00:00:00 CST