=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Andr=E9_Volpato?= <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I need to store one-length values like '1', '2', '3' or '4' .
> Today, this field is indexed with btree and is of type smallint (int2). > How much performance will be improved if I change it to "char" (1 byte > length) ? The improvement will be zero. Because of alignment restrictions, you don't save any space from making an index entry smaller than 4 bytes. If you have several such fields adjacent in a table row, making them all narrower can save space, but it doesn't help for standalone index entries. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend