The Benefits And The Differences Between CHAR And VARCHAR Data Types For SQL Server

All of you reading this have encountered these types of data, but have you ever thought about what the differences and advantages of the two?

The obvious difference that comes to mind in length. Yes! You are right. Varchar Char supports of various lengths and supports fixed length. This is the main advantage of the VARCHAR data type. For example, consider the varchar (10) and char (10). You can save the "GEEKEPISODE" Both types of data using the entire length of the target and save the "geek", char data type to use 10 characters in common, but only 4 VARCHAR

From the above examples, it seems better than CHAR VARCHAR all the time. But remember, CHAR was included as a separate type because it has certain advantages over VARCHAR.

VARCHAR use the extra space to store the length of the string stored in it, and mark the end of the string. Considering that the char data type does not use this extra space. This is certainly the advantage of data type CHAR.

Summary:

CHAR

It is used to store a fixed string / character data

It requires no additional space / bytes to capture the length and the end of the string.

Still, if the length of the string data / character is fixed. Example: SSN, systemId, EmpID.

It is faster than VARCHAR, when used in collections and queries.

VARCHAR

Used to store variable-length string.

Requires additional bytes / space to enter the time and the end of the chain.

use, if the length of the data string / character can not be determined at the design stage. Example: name, brief description

 Slower than the CHAR data type when used in collections and queries.

Here the above explanation also applies to data types nchar and nvarchar.