On lau, 2007-06-16 at 13:35 +0200, okparanoid@xxxxxxx wrote: > Thanks > > if i understand well that means that if i choose character varying(3) or > character varying(8) or character varying(32) or character varying with no max > length the fields will take the same place in the disk (8kb) except for fields > too long to take place in the 8kb whose are stored in another place ? > > Is that correct ? not at all a varchar will occupy the bytelength of your actual string, + a small fixed overhead+padding, except when the total rowsize causes TOASTing in single-byte encodings, the string 'okparanoid' will occupy the same amount of diskspace in a varchar, varchar(10) or a varchar(1000) column, namely around 16 bytes. hope this helps gnari