What is the Difference Between char and varchar

The short answer is: VARCHAR is variable length, while CHAR is fixed length. CHAR is a fixed length string data type, so any remaining space in the field is padded with blanks. CHAR takes up 1 byte per character. ... VARCHAR is a variable length string data type, so it holds only the characters you assign to it.

1. What is different between char and varchar?
2. Which is better char or varchar?
3. What is the difference between char and varchar in mysql?
4. Where is Char and varchar used?
5. What is data type and types?
6. Can char contain numbers?
7. How long can a char be?
8. Does varchar take up space?
9. What is data type char?
10. What does varchar 255 mean?
11. What does varchar 30 mean?
12. Why is varchar 255?

What is different between char and varchar?

Storage size of VARCHAR datatype is equal to the actual length of the entered string in bytes.
...
Difference between CHAR and VARCHAR dataypes.

Which is better char or varchar?

CHAR is a fixed length field; VARCHAR is a variable length field. If you are storing strings with a wildly variable length such as names, then use a VARCHAR, if the length is always the same, then use a CHAR because it is slightly more size-efficient, and also slightly faster.

What is the difference between char and varchar in mysql?

CHAR is fixed length while VARCHAR is variable length. That means, a CHAR(x) string has exactly x characters in length, including spaces. A VARCHAR(x) string can have up to x characters and it cuts off trailing spaces, thus might be shorter than the declared length.

Where is Char and varchar used?

If you use char or varchar, we recommend to:

1. Use char when the sizes of the column data entries are consistent.
2. Use varchar when the sizes of the column data entries vary considerably.
3. Use varchar(max) when the sizes of the column data entries vary considerably, and the string length might exceed 8,000 bytes.

What is data type and types?

A data type is a type of data. ... Some common data types include integers, floating point numbers, characters, strings, and arrays. They may also be more specific types, such as dates, timestamps, boolean values, and varchar (variable character) formats.

Can char contain numbers?

The CHAR data type stores any string of letters, numbers, and symbols. It can store single-byte and multibyte characters, based on the database locale.

How long can a char be?

The char type takes 1 byte of memory (8 bits) and allows expressing in the binary notation 2^8=256 values. The char type can contain both positive and negative values. The range of values is from -128 to 127.

Does varchar take up space?

Varchar(max) stores a maximum of 2,147,483,647 characters. But, varchar(50) keeps the 50 character space even if you don't store 50 characters. but varchar(max) is flexible to any size. size doesn't matter.

What is data type char?

Char is a C++ data type designed for the storage of letters. Char is an acronym for a character. It is an integral data type, meaning the value is stored as an integer. A char takes a memory size of 1 byte. It also stores a single character.

What does varchar 255 mean?

Now, how does VARCHAR work? If you specify it as VARCHAR(255), that means that the column will reserve 1 byte + length of the string bytes. That 1 byte indicates how long the string is. 1 byte = you can have from 0 - 255 values stored (2 to the power of 8 = 256).

What does varchar 30 mean?

The CHAR and VARCHAR types are declared with a length that indicates the maximum number of characters you want to store. For example, CHAR(30) can hold up to 30 characters. The length of a CHAR column is fixed to the length that you declare when you create the table. The length can be any value from 0 to 255.

Why is varchar 255?

255 is used because it's the largest number of characters that can be counted with an 8-bit number. ... When used this way, VarChar only uses the number of bytes + 1 to store your text, so you might as well set it to 255, unless you want a hard limit (like 50) on the number of characters in the field.