Re: fixed-length row

On Thursday 15 January 2004 14:17, David Garamond wrote:
> The MySQL manual recommends that we create a "fixed-length row" if
> possible, for speed (especially scanning speed). A fixed-length row is a
> row which is comprised of only fixed-length fields. A fixed-length field
> takes a fixed amount of bytes for storage (e.g. INT = 4 bytes, CHAR(M) =
> M bytes, etc).
>
> Is there a similar recommendation in PostgreSQL? I notice that most data
> types are stored in variable-length mode anyway (is cidr and inet data
> types fixed-length?)

Not really - there have been various discussions about timing differences
between char() and varchar() and I don't recall one being noticably faster
than the others.

> Is there a command/query in psql which can show storage requirement for
> each field? For example:

No, but there's stuff in the archives, and I think something on techdocs too.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd