Re: char vs. varchar in a data warehouse

I say make all char fields varchar2 no mater how long they are. It sure makes it easier for debugging later on, when the duhvelopers tell you that their code doesn't work and its b/c of a data type mismatch. Standards are paramount.

Gene

>>> lisa.yttri_at_cnh.com 06/05/02 11:53AM >>>
Hi -

We are in the process of building a data warehouse and data stores. This will be built on a Sun Solaris (2.8) machine running Oracle 9i R1. Estimates are approximately 180GB.

The developers have defined most of their small character fields as varchar2 - even the ones of size 1! They tell me that if the column does not have a value, they do not want to have to deal with a 'space' when manipulating that value.

Does this make sense? Should I be pursuing this further or shouldn't I care as the DBA?

Lisa

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