Lots of older databases had fixed length fields, and you had to pad it if it was smaller. VARCHAR is a relatively new thing. So it’s not just saving space, but that old databases tended to force the issue.
Nobody has an excuse today. Even Cobol has variable length strings.
Lots of older databases had fixed length fields, and you had to pad it if it was smaller.
VARCHAR
is a relatively new thing. So it’s not just saving space, but that old databases tended to force the issue.Nobody has an excuse today. Even Cobol has variable length strings.