VarChar fields

[Ruslan Zasukhin]

On 5/5/05 1:17 AM, "Barney" <barney at custombased.com> wrote:

Hi Barney,
 
> I know this is pretty elementary stuff but I never could get it figured out.
> 
> Does a VarChar field have a maximum length ?

Yes, and you set it on creation of field
 
> I'm sure I've had cases where I've had data truncated in a VarChar.
 
> If it does have a maximum length, is this set by the page size ?

No, when you create varchar you specify size in chars.

For now it is recommended to use
    VarChar[1022]  
    
This give you 1022 UTF16 chars.
 
> ie If page size is set to 504, will it truncate any string in excess of this
> or does it truncate any string in excess of 1024

You talk about 1.x ?

504 this is not size of page!
This is mac length in chars

 
> If the page size was 1024 will it then truncate string roughly twice the
> size.
> 
> Is a VarChar field more efficient  than a string because it only uses as
> much disk space as need be, instead of allocating exactly that which is
> stated by person.

yes
 
> A TEXT field seems like a good option wanting to supply a field for taking
> notes which might have 1 line in it or hundreds of lines in it. But does a
> TEXT field use much more disk space than a string or VarChar or only as much
> as it needs to store the string.

Close to AS NEEDED 

-- 
Best regards,

Ruslan Zasukhin
VP Engineering and New Technology
Paradigma Software, Inc

Valentina - Joining Worlds of Information
http://www.paradigmasoft.com

[I feel the need: the need for speed]