Re[2]: char is going away?

From: Jonathan Gennick <jonathan_at_gennick.com>
Date: Wed, 10 Dec 2003 10:54:38 -0800
Message-ID: <F001.005D972F.20031210105438@fatcity.com>

DW> If your application is COBOL-based, using CHAR DW> simplifies things quite a bit.

True enough. I'd forgotten about COBOL. The semantics of COBOL's PIC X fields match up pretty closely (exactly?) to SQL CHAR fields.

DW> My understanding is that VARCHAR2 is not even a SQL standard

The keyword VARCHAR2 is not in the standard, but a variable-length type is. I think the standard uses CHARACTER VARYING, or something like that. I don't have time to look it up right now.

DB2 uses VARCHAR, without the "2". I'm not sure why Oracle is so outspoken against that same keyword. I'd be interested in finding out.

Best regards,

Jonathan Gennick --- Brighten the corner where you are http://Gennick.com * 906.387.1698 * mailto:jonathan@gennick.com

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Author: Jonathan Gennick
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