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| > -----Original Message----- > From: owner-informix-list@iiug.org > [mailto > Sent: Wednesday, July 06, 2005 2:11 PM > To: informix-list@iiug.org > Subject: Re: Question about VARCHAR Vs. CHAR fields > > > "DA Morgan" <damorgan@psoug.org> wrote > > > Is it true that in Informix VARCHAR takes more space than CHAR? > > Not at all. Just one byte extra at the beginning to record the length. > > > In Oracle the waste of space and CPU comes with working > with CHAR and > > it has been almost completely abandoned. > > same is true with informix, except that upto a length of > char(15) (some say even 20) the performance gain in char is > worth the space wasted. so I would always recommend a char > field upto char(15). The difference between char and varchar > becomes stark in delete-and-load tables. That is tables which > are periodically cleaned and loaded again. A table with > fixed-length columns (char, int, date etc) loads much faster > than with variable length table. I think it is something to > do with the engine calculating before inserting on which page > the row will fit. > Also, tables with varchar columns won't use light scans, which can improve performance on large scans. DC sending to informix-list |