I have a column in my MySQL DB table that only has one character in it. Should the data type be set as Char(1) or Varchar(1). It will only be either 'N' or 'W'.

Thanks.

Picco

www.crmpicco.co.uk

__________________
_______________________
Ayrshire Minis - a Mini E-Community
http://www.ayrshireminis.com
http://www.crmpicco.co.uk

Hi Picco,

Using char(1) would use 1 byte per character, while using a varchar would use 2 bytes per character. Therefore I recommend using char(1) for efficiency.

You can get more information on chars and varchars from MySQL's developer documentation: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/char.html.

Jon Emerson
Computer Scientist
Adobe Systems, Inc.

Value CHAR(4) Storage Required VARCHAR(4) Storage Required
'' ' ' 4 bytes '' 1 byte
'ab' 'ab ' 4 bytes 'ab ' 3 bytes
'abcd' 'abcd' 4 bytes 'abcd' 5 bytes
'abcdefgh' 'abcd' 4 bytes 'abcd' 5 bytes

This table is quite conflicting from what you were saying above.
It seems VARCHAR is better for smaller records, i,e 1?

www.crmpicco.co.uk

Hi Picco,

A char column is fixed in length, whereas a varchar is not and uses one extra byte to store the length of the value. Therefore for a char(1), 1 byte will be used and for a varchar(1), 1 byte plus 1 byte to store the length = 2 bytes will be used.

HTH,

Chris

ah, ok. Cheers for that. I had it set up with Char(1), so i'll keep it at that!

www.crmpicco.co.uk