Jim Lawrence
accessd at shaw.ca
Mon Jan 22 20:43:01 CST 2007
Hi John: To my understanding there are real fixed length fields. Sizes can be fixed to a maximum like varchar(4000) but only the amount of space that is actually being used is being allocated. The defining of field types is more for display format, structure, management, relationship and functionality ... Internally, as far as I know, all the field/objects have variable length. Jim -----Original Message----- From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of JWColby Sent: Monday, January 22, 2007 5:36 PM To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com Subject: [dba-SQLServer] varchar vs char Is there a rule of thumb for where it is better to use a fixed width rather than a variable width field? Something like... "if a field may be more than 5 characters"? John W. Colby Colby Consulting www.ColbyConsulting.com _______________________________________________ dba-SQLServer mailing list dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver http://www.databaseadvisors.com