LENGTH() and VARCHAR

>Right.. it gives their DEFINED lengths not the actual >lengths (for VARCHAR at least) as stored for a given >row. It sounds like nobody that uses Informix (at least >on this forum ;-)) uses length() for this purpose and >so the fact that you can't do this: > INSERT INTO VT(VARCOLUMN) VALUES ('Kirk ') > SELECT * FROM VT WHERE LENGTH(VARCOLUMN) = 7 >and have the SELECT return that row. >Correct? >p.s. I'm getting this info from the 5.0 SQL ref that says >that TRAILING SPACES ARE STORED in VARCHAR columns. If >that isn't true then all bets are off I guess. -- >Kirk Bradley >Oracle Corporation >Mainframe and Integration Technologies Group Kirk If you would read a little more you would find that the LENGTH() function returns the number of bytes in a string after removing trailing spaces. Also I would not expect the select you give as an example to "return that row" you inserted. I would expect that many rows might be selected. Further more if Informix did everything the way Oracle does, there would not be a need for Oracle. Assuming there is a need for Oracle. If you don+t like something don+t use it. Chuck Francis