Character strings#
Non-Unicode character data, stored in the server’s code page. Character data can be fixed-length
(char) or variable-length (varchar); fixed-length strings are right-padded with spaces on
output, variable-length strings are not. text is the legacy large-object variant.
char
varchar
text
char and varchar#
String data types of either fixed length or variable length.
Example:
DECLARE @myVariable AS varchar = 'xyz';
SELECT @myVariable as aVarchar;
text#
Variable-length non-Unicode data in the code page of the server, with a maximum string length of 2^31-1 (2,147,483,647). When the server code page uses double-byte characters, the storage is still 2,147,483,647 bytes; depending on the character string, the storage size may be less.
Example:
SELECT cast('Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet...' as text);