Character data types

STRING

is a character data type that does not require the size to be declared (the size of a STRING variable changes depending of the size of the value stored in it)

CHAR

is a character data type that allows storing character data in fixed-length fields as strings of single-byte or multibyte letters, numbers, and other characters

VARCHAR

is a character data type that allows storing character data in variable-length fields as strings of single-byte or multibyte letters, numbers, and other characters

LVARCHAR

is a "large" VARCHAR - a character data type that allows storing character data in variable-length fields as strings of single-byte or multibyte letters, numbers, and other characters (was introduced to bypass the size limitation of the standard VARCHAR type; can be used to represent the external format of opaque data types)

NCHAR

is a locale-sensitive character data type that allows storing character data in fixed-length fields as strings of single-byte or multibyte letters, numbers, and other characters supported by the code set of the necessary database locale

NVARCHAR

is a locale-sensitive character data type that allows storing character data in variable-length fields as strings of single-byte or multibyte letters, numbers, and other characters supported by the code set of the necessary database locale

length

default size

maximum size

reserved size

collation

STRING

variable

0

unlimited

code set

CHAR

fixed

1

65,534

code set

VARCHAR

variable

0 for reserved

65,534

0 to 255 bytes

code set

LVARCHAR

variable

2048

32,765

code set

NCHAR

fixed

1

32,767

localized

NVARCHAR

variable

0 for reserved

255

0 to 255 bytes

localized