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 SQL Language StructureCommon Language Elements 

CHAR

Data Type Declaration Format
{CHAR | CHARACTER} [(length)]
  [CHARACTER SET <set>] [COLLATE <name>]
Table 1. CHAR Type Parameters
Parameter Description

length

Length in characters, defaults to 1.A valid length is from 1 to the maximum number of characters that can be accommodated within 32,767 bytes.

set

Character set name

name

Collation name

CHAR is a fixed-length character data type.Values shorter than the declared length are padded with spaces up to the declared length.The pad character does not have to be a space (0x20): it depends on the character set.For example, the pad character for the OCTETS character set is NUL (0x00).

Fixed-length character data can be used to store codes whose length is standard and has a definite “width”.An example of such a code is an EAN13 barcode — 13 characters, all filled.

Note

  • CHAR CHARACTER SET OCTETS has the alias BINARY

  • Formally, the COLLATE clause is not part of the data type declaration, and its position depends on the syntax of the statement.
See also

[fblangref50-datatypes-chartypes-binary], [fblangref50-datatypes-chartypes-varchar]

VARBINARY

Data Type Declaration Format
{VARBINARY | BINARY VARYING} (length)
Table 1. VARBINARY Type Parameters
Parameter Description

length

Length in bytes between 1 and 32,765

VARBINARY is a variable-length binary type, and is an SQL standard-compliant alias for VARCHAR(length) CHARACTER SET OCTETS.

Note

Some tools may report the type as VARCHAR CHARACTER SET OCTETS instead of VARBINARY.
See also

[fblangref50-datatypes-chartypes-varchar], [fblangref50-datatypes-chartypes-binary]