Char

CHAR is a data type used to store fixed-length character data. A char value can contain up to 2000 bytes of data (the limit was 255 bytes in Oracle 7). If you insert a value shorter than the specified length, Oracle will blank-pad the value. If you insert a value that is too long, Oracle will return an error.

Example

SQL> CREATE TABLE char_test (col1 CHAR(10));

Table created.

SQL> INSERT INTO char_test VALUES ('qwerty');

1 row created.

Internal storage

Values are blank padded to the maximum declared length:

SQL> SELECT col1, length(col1), dump(col1) "ASCII Dump" FROM char_test;

COL1   LENGTH(COL1) ASCII Dump
------ ------------ --------------------------------------------------
qwerty           10 Typ=96 Len=10: 113,119,101,114,116,121,32,32,32,32

Note the four blanks (char 32) at the end of the string.

Also see

• Varchar
• Varchar2

Glossary of Terms
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