Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!sunybcs!canisius!pavlov From: pavlov@canisius.UUCP (Greg Pavlov) Newsgroups: comp.databases Subject: Re: variable record length Message-ID: <2654@canisius.UUCP> Date: 3 Feb 90 21:15:10 GMT References: Distribution: usa Organization: Canisius College, Buffalo N.Y. 14208 Lines: 20 In article <1990Jan31.040651.20590@oracle.com>, mfriedma@oracle.com (Michael Friedman) writes: > > }}The length in the SQL statement is the maximum length. Oracle *stores* > }}all character columns as variable length (ie not taking up more space > }}than needed for the data in question) so all character columns are in > }}effect variable length. > > Mind telling me what I could do with variable length columns that I > can't do with regular Oracle columns? > Depending on your database, save a lot of disk space. For instance, our databases are composed almost exclusively of 1-4 -byte data items. When we tried loading one of these into Oracle, the database ballooned in size: there is a lot of overhead supporting this automatic variable length "feature". Consequently, when projecting costs for Oracle vs. other dbms's, we had to haul out our favorite vendor's disk catalogue...... (well, to be honest, we didn't choose Oracle for a lot of other reasons as well). greg pavlov, fstrf, amherst, ny