Sql – Should I use VARCHAR(20) or VARCHAR(255) to store a name

databasesqlstring-lengthvarchar

At the university I was told to use VARCHAR(20) to store a first name. The VARCHAR type takes space depending of string length, so is it necessary to specify smaller length range? I'm asking because RedBean ORM creates on default a VARCHAR(255) field for strings which length is <= 255 chars.

Is it any difference between using VARCHAR(20) and VARCHAR(255)? Except the maximum string length that can be stored 🙂

*I know that such questions have already been asked but all I understand from them is that using VARCHAR(255) where it isn't necessary could cause excessive memory consumption in DB applications.

What it is in real life programming? Should I use VARCHAR(255) for all short text inputs or try to limit length whenever it is possible?

Best Answer

Because 255 is now just an arbitrary choice for a VARCHAR length.

Explanation: Prior to MySQL 5.0.3 (give or take a few point releases - I forget) a VARCHAR column could be 255 characters in length maximum, so VARCHAR(255) was often used as a default. Now, however, you can go up to 65,535 characters on VARCHAR, so if you're still using "255" then that seems arbitrary and not well thought out (or your schema is just old).

Related Solutions

Mysql – How to quickly rename a MySQL database (change schema name)

For InnoDB, the following seems to work: create the new empty database, then rename each table in turn into the new database:

RENAME TABLE old_db.table TO new_db.table;

You will need to adjust the permissions after that.

For scripting in a shell, you can use either of the following:

mysql -u username -ppassword old_db -sNe 'show tables' | while read table; \ 
    do mysql -u username -ppassword -sNe "rename table old_db.$table to new_db.$table"; done

for table in `mysql -u root -ppassword -s -N -e "use old_db;show tables from old_db;"`; do mysql -u root -ppassword -s -N -e "use old_db;rename table old_db.$table to new_db.$table;"; done;

Notes:

There is no space between the option -p and the password. If your database has no password, remove the -u username -ppassword part.
If some table has a trigger, it cannot be moved to another database using above method (will result Trigger in wrong schema error). If that is the case, use a traditional way to clone a database and then drop the old one:

mysqldump old_db | mysql new_db
If you have stored procedures, you can copy them afterwards:

mysqldump -R old_db | mysql new_db

Sql-server – the difference between varchar and nvarchar

An nvarchar column can store any Unicode data. A varchar column is restricted to an 8-bit codepage. Some people think that varchar should be used because it takes up less space. I believe this is not the correct answer. Codepage incompatabilities are a pain, and Unicode is the cure for codepage problems. With cheap disk and memory nowadays, there is really no reason to waste time mucking around with code pages anymore.

All modern operating systems and development platforms use Unicode internally. By using nvarchar rather than varchar, you can avoid doing encoding conversions every time you read from or write to the database. Conversions take time, and are prone to errors. And recovery from conversion errors is a non-trivial problem.

If you are interfacing with an application that uses only ASCII, I would still recommend using Unicode in the database. The OS and database collation algorithms will work better with Unicode. Unicode avoids conversion problems when interfacing with other systems. And you will be preparing for the future. And you can always validate that your data is restricted to 7-bit ASCII for whatever legacy system you're having to maintain, even while enjoying some of the benefits of full Unicode storage.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Mysql – How to quickly rename a MySQL database (change schema name)

Sql-server – the difference between varchar and nvarchar

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