Empty Field or Null...

[handle87]

Hi,

In a table if you have a field that is empty, does it still hold that space?

And also, if you put a Null value in it does that change anything?

CES

 

[TonyGroves]

Do you mean does an empty or null field take up the same amount of space as a filled field? The answer to that depends on the data type. For numeric, date/time, and CHAR fields, the answer is yes. For a VARCHAR, TEXT-type or BLOB-type field, the answer is no, the amount of space used depends on the length of the data in the field.

 

[handle87]

That is what I was asking thanks!

Is there a default length for a text field?

 

[TonyGroves]

The default length for a TEXT-type field is zero. If it contains no data, it takes up little or no space.

 

[handle87]

Thanks!

 

[handle87]

I had thought that maybe the space was reserved.

Thanks again.