IDS7.3 - Compared costs between CHAR and VARCHAR ?

Hi all, I read a few weeks ago a discussion on differencies between CHAR and VARCHAR column. I'd like to have more comparative information between these two types of data. The problem I am dealing with is quite simple : I have a string data which can be 15, 16 or 17 characters long. Today, I store it in a VARCHAR(17) column. But I 'm wondering if it would be better to store it in a CHAR(17) column, cause my table will grow about 2 500 000 rows per month. Wich solution has the minimum impact on IDS perfs ? Managing the VARCHAR (2 more bytes to store and read) or deleting blanks in strings when reading from a CHAR coloumn ? Is there any comparative study somewhere on this topic ? I use IDS 7.31 TC2 on NT4.00 SP5. TIA for your help. -- - -------------------------------------------------------------- - - Arnaud ANDRIEUX arnaud.andrieux@aql.fr - - Ingenieur en developpement - - Direction Metier Industrie - - -------------------------------------------------------------- - - ALLIANCE QUALITE LOGICIEL http://www.aql.fr - - Rue de la Chataigneraie - - B.P. 127 - - 35513 CESSON SEVIGNE - - tel : (33) (0)2.99.12.50.00 - - fax : (33) (0)2.99.63.70.40 - - -------------------------------------------------------------- -