Re: Reducing data type space usage

Gregory Stark writes:
> Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> >
> > There isn't if you want the type to also handle long strings.
> > But what if we restrict it to short strings? See my
> message just now.
>
> Then it seems like it imposes a pretty hefty burden on the user.
>

But there are a lot of places where it wins:
- single byte for a multi-state flag
- hex representation of a hash (like SHA-1)
- part numbers
- lots of fields imported from legacy systems
- ZIP/Postal codes

And for all of those you can decisively say at design time that 127
characters is an OK limit.

+1 for Bruce/Tom's idea.

Regards,
Paul Bort