Hello, > those 'silent column specification changes' affect all table types. That > feature has caused lots of user questions over years. It is in the TODO to > remove that feature from MySQL, because it is not standards compliant. In > InnoDB, a reason to use a CHAR column in some cases is to reduce > fragmentation if there are lots of updates to that column. A CHAR column > takes a fixed space. Silent column specification changes in many cases > defeat this optimization which would otherwise be available to users.
I had a very long discussion with someone about this... He said the same as you. IMO, this is rubbish. Why should a CHAR column take up fixed space?? CHAR is a logical datatype. How you store it physically is up to the database engine implemenation. That means you can store it as number of flowers in a vase, or whatever ;-) No, seriously: there's no reason why you cannot store CHARs as VARCHARs, or put an extra compression over it, and return/use the values as char-padded values. With regards, Martijn Tonies Database Workbench - developer tool for InterBase, Firebird, MySQL & MS SQL Server. Upscene Productions http://www.upscene.com -- MySQL General Mailing List For list archives: http://lists.mysql.com/mysql To unsubscribe: http://lists.mysql.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
