Re: Does max size of varchar influence index size

Franck Routier wrote:
> Le lundi 30 juin 2008 à 13:24 -0700, Mark Roberts a écrit :
>
> Hi Mark,
>
>> Is there any particular reason that you're not using a surrogate key?
>
> Well, human readability is the main reason, no standard way to handle
> sequences between databases vendors being the second... (and also
> problems when copying data between different instances of the database).
>
> So surrogate keys could be a way, and I am considering this, but I'd
> rather avoid it :)

Might be worth looking at 8.3 - that can save you significant space with
short varchar's - the field-length is no longer fixed at 32 bits but can
adjust itself automatically. Apart from the overheads, you need the
space to store the text in each string, not the maximum possible.

--
Richard Huxton
Archonet Ltd