Re: RE: Get max length of data for a column

Morning Martin,

(Sorry, afternoon already!)


> I *thought* VARCHAR2 was varying size based on a Run Length Encoding for
> the column where CHAR was always fixed length
Varchar2 stores only the data it was given, so, inserting '1234H' and 
'123 ' into a varchar results in 5 and 4 used characters respectively, 
regardless of the column's definition.

Inserting the above two values into a CHAR(10) column would result in 
exactly 10 characters being stored, each value iw space filled on the 
right to the column width.

> to acquire column length the path of least resistance is to take the
> length from USER_TAB_COLUMNS e.g.
> SQL> select DATA_LENGTH from USER_TAB_COLUMNS where table_name='USER$'
> AND COLUMN_NAME='PASSWORD';
Nope, won't worl. DATA_LENGTH is how the column was defined, 
VARCHAR2(10) and CHAR(15) will always give you 10 and 15. The OP was 
after the size of the data in the columns, not the maximum size it can be.


> Norm or Bert does this conform to your understanding?
See above.


-- 
Cheers,
Norm. [TeamT]


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