Hi Naomi.
Yes.. the initial problem I was having with Char(10) fields may have been to do with converting from VFP as all the data I wold have been workong with ,was SQL Server data uplifted from VFP
Regards,
Gerard



>>Hi Naomi,
>>Thes Char fields that were causing the problem were all Char(10) and are set up really as lookup codes (e.g. Rep Numbers, Account numbers, Area Codes)
>>
>>I had started off using Varchar for these but ran into some issues on looking up data (Can't remenmber exactly what the issues were) but changed to Char(10) for any of these type fields and it sorted the problem at the time
>>
>>For any variable length fields I tend top use VarChar , but perhaps I should revisit why I used the Char(10 fields)
>>
>>Regards,
>>Gerard
>>
>>
>10 chars is not too much of a problem. We use 10 chars ourselves for 3 compound keys (department, category, item) in many tables. I believe it's a problem of converting old VFP apps into SQL Server backend and it was never addressed.
>
>So, for existing keys you may keep char(10), but make sure to use correct structures in the future.
>
>BTW, just recently I discovered another suprising fact that nobody noticed before (10 or more years of usage). All varchar fields are linked to char fields by default when using SPT and so we save all our data with trailing spaces and lost all benefits of varchar fields. Hopefully we will be able to address this problem in a future.