VarChar

[olivier]

Hi Ruslan and list,

I know that the question was already put in the list but I saw 
contradictory answers.

I have a string field of 100 bytes.
But many recordings have only 15-40 bytes.

As I have 3 000 000 of the recordings, the database is too important on 
the hard disk.
I wanted to use a varchar on the place of the string, to reduce the 
size.

But the documentation indicates :
"MaxLenghth : When using a varchar field, there is no benefit (in terms 
of speed OR DISK SPACE) to using a value of less than 504 bytes because 
it stores characters in logical pages"

It means that with a varchar, my string of 100 bytes will take really 
504 bytes ?!
Or it means that that I can put for example 5 fields of 95 bytes + 
header 4 = 5 X 99 = 495 + header 8 bytes = 504 bytes ?

Random access are much slower with a varchar than with a string?

I saw on the list which it has had many problems with varchar there. 
Now, varchar works perfectly?

thank you very much

olivier