String Data Types

String data types

Exasol supports two SQL standard types for characters: CHAR and VARCHAR.

CHAR(n) has a fixed and pre-defined length n. If you insert a value that is shorter than n, space characters are automatically added to fill the remaining space (padding). The maximum allowed length is 2,000 characters.

VARCHAR(n) can contain a string of the length n or smaller. The string is stored in its actual length without padding. The maximum allowed length is 2,000,000 characters.

You can use ASCII or UTF-8 (Unicode) to define the character set in CHAR and VARCHAR. If no character set is defined, UTF-8 is used by default.

Data type	Character set	Note
`CHAR(n)`	ASCII, UTF-8	`n` = number of characters (optional) 1 ≤ `n` ≤ 2000, default = `1`
`VARCHAR(n)`	ASCII, UTF-8	`n` = number of characters 1 ≤ `n` ≤ 2,000,000