RE: Re[2]: char is going away?

On Informix, at least as late as 9.1, using varchars was down right dangerous. There were numerous bugs associated with them. In my last shop we would not allow the use of varchars because of the grief they would cause. A few months after I moved on, I told my former teammates over lunch that in the Oracle world we almost never use char. They were stunned. Unheard of in Informix.

-----Original Message-----
From: DENNIS WILLIAMS [mailto:DWILLIAMS@LIFETOUCH.COM]
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 2:39 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L
Subject: RE: Re[2]: char is going away?

Raj, Jonathan

1. I have heard rumors that in other databases the VARCHAR performance isn't
good. In fact, some people that are converting from other databases to
Oracle are pleasantly surprised that Oracle handles VARCHAR well.
2. I have been curious about Oracle's statement that you should use
VARCHAR2. If I was a suspicious person I would say that sounded like a
vendor's attempt to encourage proprietary coding, but I'm not suspicious, no
way.
   My point isn't that VARCHAR isn't there, of course it is, but if you were
developing an application to sell and support on several different
databases, you might consider CHAR as a safer bet.

Dennis Williams
DBA
Lifetouch, Inc.
dwilliams@lifetouch.com

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 1:10 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

Oracle has varchar and varchar2 both ...

<tfm>
The VARCHAR2 subtypes below have the same range of values as their base
type. For example, VARCHAR is just another name for VARCHAR2.

    STRING
    VARCHAR

You can use these subtypes for compatibility with ANSI/ISO and IBM types.

Note: Currently, VARCHAR is synonymous with VARCHAR2. However, in future
releases of PL/SQL, to accommodate emerging SQL standards, VARCHAR might
become a separate datatype with different comparison semantics. So, it is a
good idea to use VARCHAR2 rather than VARCHAR.
</tfm>

http://download-west.oracle.com/docs/cd/B10501_01/appdev.920/a96624/03_types
.htm#10824

HTH
Raj
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-----Original Message-----
Sent: Wednesday, December 10, 2003 1:55 PM
To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L

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

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