Ian wrote:
> jdokos wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a question about VARCHAR fields. Our application groups here
>> are starting to use VARCHARs much more frequently. Even VARCHAR (2) to
>> (9) length fields. They say this is because some of the application
>> programs, specifically Java Beans cannot handle the spaces after the
>> value in CHAR fields.
>>
>> Is anyone else seeing this trend?
>>
>> I know that VARCHAR fields have 2 extra bytes of overhead. Does anyone
>> know if there is a significant performance impact in DML against these
>> fields due to tracking the length?
>
>
> There is the additional storage overhead as you mention, plus this can
> lead to performance issues with row overflows and/or page reorgs.
>
> IMO, this is usually a symptom of lazy programmers rather than "the
> app can't handle extra spaces".

Is it true that in Informix VARCHAR takes more space than CHAR? In
Oracle the waste of space and CPU comes with working with CHAR and
it has been almost completely abandoned.

Thanks.
--
Daniel A. Morgan
http://www.psoug.org
damorgan@x.washington.edu
(replace x with u to respond)