Varchar versus Char

[johnherman]

Does anyone know if there is a breakover point when deciding to usse char in in lieu of varchar to same the extra overhead associated with vachar. I seem to remember a cutover at 18 for Sybase SQL Server.

Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side because there is more manure there - original.

 

[DrJavaJoe]

Straight from MSDN

The variable-length datatypes VARCHAR and VARBINARY are similar to nullable types in their advantages and disadvantages. They add an extra few bytes per row to the length and slow down transactions. But if the average actual length is much shorter than the maximum declared one, these types may save space and offer better performance than fixed-length types.