Re: varchar vs. text

On Wed, Jul 11, 2001 at 09:56:27AM -0400, Jan Wieck wrote:
> Rachit Siamwalla wrote:
> >
> > Is there any good reason to use VARCHAR over TEXT for a string field? ie.
> > performance hits, etc.
> >
> > Other than running into the row size limit problem, are there any large
> > storage / performance penalties of using TEXT for virtually all strings?
>
> Er - what kind of "row size limit"? I remember vaguely that
> there was something the like in ancient releases, but forgot
> the specific restrictions.

<FX: Sound of Jan whistling, looking around innocently>

Very good Jan. Yes, PostgreSQL certainly develops on Internet time, and
while TOAST may seem ancient news to you, it was only in the 7.1 release
(2001-04-13). Three months is a little early to start the 'Problem? What
problem?' campaign. Especially since some of the client libs (OBDC)
just caught up, last week. :-)

What Jan is so innocently not saying is described here:

http://www.ca.postgresql.org/projects/devel-toast.html

Jan not only solved the 'row size limit', he did it in a more general
way, solving lots of the follow on problems that come from putting large
fields into a table. Details at the above URL.

Ross