Re: character varying == text?

[Alex Turner <armtuk@xxxxxxxxx>]

I thought a char field was supposed to return a padded string, and varchar was supposed to return a non-padded string?

I just checked though:

create table test (
stuff char(10)
);

insert into test values ('foo');

select stuff || 'lemon' from test;

This returns 'foolemon', not 'foo        lemon' as I would have expected.

Alex Turner
NetEconomist

On 9/15/05, Tom Lane <tgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

CSN <cool_screen_name90001@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Just something I was curious about - is there any
> difference at all between "character varying" (in the
> SQL spec) without a length specified and "text" (not
> in the SQL spec)?

The SQL standard doesn't allow "character varying" without a length spec.

But yeah, in Postgres they're essentially the same thing.

                        regards, tom lane

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