>Hi Naomi.
>I've read the explanation .... who designed these things anyway !!!!
>For now ' I'll use VarChar and also look at Dynamic Sql
>Many thanks again for your thorough investigation
>Regards,
>Gerard
>
>
For the variable length columns and parameters, IMHO, makes no sense to use character. If the column's length is greater than 5 and the values can be of different length, then always use varchar. In other words, I would question the database design also.