best way to store very variable length string in sql table

[Steve Richter]

The strings I want to store in an SQL table will 99% of the time be
short, 128 characters or less. But they could be much longer ( the
RawUrl from the asp.net Request object ).

What is the best way to declare such a string?

Will I be wasting a lot of space if I declare the column as
VarChar(9999)? Or do strings in SQL just use the actual length of the
string?

thanks,

-Steve

 

[Marina]

I believe varchar columns will only take up the space of the characters
actually being stored in them.

Columns declared as 'char', are the ones that are always a fixed length
regardless of the values being stored.

 

[Steve Richter]

I believe varchar columns will only take up the space of the characters
actually being stored in them.

Columns declared as 'char', are the ones that are always a fixed length
regardless of the values being stored.

ok, thank you Marina.

-Steve

 

[Miha Markic [MVP C#]]

Hi Marina,

I believe varchar columns will only take up the space of the characters
actually being stored in them.

To be more precise, it stores actual characters plus some metadata (few
bytes)

Columns declared as 'char', are the ones that are always a fixed length
regardless of the values being stored.

Right.