Re: HELP: Informix 5, Varchar / Char types / Powerbuilder 4

This sounds more like you have used dbaccess/isql to write an SQL statement with a long literal string. There is a maximum of 255 characters for such strings. I don't know for sure, but I think this limit applies to ESQL/C and 4GL as well. The solution is to use a variable in some language (C, 4GL or whatever you are using) and insert the content of that into your database field. That works fine. "Clyde H. Bryant" <cbryant@primenet.com> wrote: :Hans Nieuwenburg wrote: :> :> The Informix 5 varchar type can onle be 255 characters long while the char :> type can be mutch longer. In a database we first had a vanchar field and :> converted that to char to enlarge the field to 4096, somehow the database :> comes back with an error when we try to insert a record with text longer :> then 255 characters the message we get is: -280 :> :> This is the meaning of -280 from the informix help file: :> "-280 :> :> A quoted string exceeds 256 bytes. :> :> Somewhere in this statement there is a character literal that exceeds the :> maximum allowed. Inspect the statement, checking the punctuation and :> length of all quoted strings. Possibly two quotes are missing, making a :> long string out of two short ones. If you intended to use a string of :> this length, you will have to revise the statement. There is no means for :> writing such a long character string in an SQL statement. :> " :> :> How can we solve this, according to the table configuration this field is :> 4096 bytes long! :> :> Please HELP! (i'm in despere) :Sound like the engine still thinks the column type is varchar :and not char. Check syscolumns for the data type ("coltype, :collength"). I guess you could unload the table then drop the :table and re-create it with the column as char(4096) which is :a big column. Why not define it as a text column? :Hope this helps : Clyde Nils.Myklebust@idg.no NM Data AS, P.O.Box 9090 Gronland, N-0133 Oslo, Norway My opinions are those of my company The Informix FAQ is at http://www.iiug.org