SQL Server Data Types - VARCHAR

Versions: SQL Server 2008, 2005, 2000, 7.0 and 6.5

SQL Server - VARCHAR
Syntax	VARCHAR[(n \| max)]
Data	Variable-length character data, single-byte and multibyte character sets
Parameters	n is the maximum number of bytes, optional
Range	1 ⇐ n ⇐ 8000, if max is specified, the maximum length is 2G
Default	n is 1
Padding	Not right-padded with spaces to n
Trailing Spaces	if ANSI_PADDING is ON, trailing blanks are not trimmed, if ANSI_PADDING is OFF, trailing blanks are trimmed
Empty String	'' is treated as empty string, 0 characters in length
Character Set	Database default, unless it is assigned using the COLLATE clause
Storage Size	Actual entry length + 2 bytes
Version Differences	SQL Server 2005 - max option is introduced
Synonyms	CHAR VARYING, CHARACTER VARYING
Standards	ANSI SQL

SQL Server VARCHAR - Equivalents in Other Databases

Database	Data Type and Conversion
Oracle	VARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 4000/charsize	CLOB, 4G
MySQL	VARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 65535/charsize	LONGTEXT, 4G
PostgreSQL	VARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 1G	TEXT, 1G
Sybase ASE	VARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ pagesize (2K, 4K, 8K or 16K)	TEXT, 2G
Informix	VARCHAR(n,r), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 255, LVARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32739	TEXT, 2G, CLOB, 4T
HP Neoview	VARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ (32708 - size of other columns)
Ingres	VARCHAR(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32000; TEXT(n), 1 ⇐ n ⇐ 32000;	LONG VARCHAR, 2G

Related Data Types in SQL Server

Data Types
Fixed-length Character Data	CHAR(n)	NCHAR(n)
Variable-length Character Data	NVARCHAR(n)
Character Large Objects	TEXT	NTEXT

All Data Types

Oracle

SQL Server

IBM DB2

MySQL

PostgreSQL

Sybase ASE

Sybase ASA

Informix DS

Teradata

HP Neoview

Interbase/Firebird

Ingres