SQL Dialects Reference/Data structure definition/Data types/Character types

Character types

This page includes comparison tables which can be big and complex.

While it's perfectly all right to view them in their complete state, it is recommended to install a comparison tables extension that would allow to select particular columns of interest for comparison.

SQL version Feature Standard DB2 Firebird Ingres Linter MSSQL MySQL MonetDB Oracle PostgreSQL SQLite Virtuoso
 ? Variable-length with limit  ? VARCHAR(n) VARCHAR(n) VARCHAR(n)
NVARCHAR(n)
VARCHAR(n)
NVARCHAR(n)
VARCHAR(n)
NVARCHAR(n)
VARCHAR(n) VARCHAR(n)
CHARACTER VARYING(n)
VARCHAR2(n)
VARCHAR(n) is slated for deprecation
character varying(n)
varchar(n)
VARCHAR(n) VARCHAR(n)
 ? Variable-length with limit, max size  ?  ? 32765  ?  ? 8000 65535 about ? MB  ? about 1 GB  ?  ?
 ? Fixed-length, blank padded string  ? CHAR(n) CHAR(n) CHAR(n)
NCHAR(n)
CHAR(n)
NCHAR(n)
CHAR(n)
NCHAR(n)
CHAR(n)  ? CHAR(n) character(n)
char(n)
CHAR(n) CHAR(n)
 ? Fixed-length, blank padded string, max size  ?  ? 32767  ?  ? 8000 255  ?  ? about 1 GB  ?  ?

Notes:

Last modified on 20 May 2013, at 09:10