>>Is there an advantage to using Varchar over Text in SQL*Server? Let's say I have a situation where the expected limits are under 4000 bytes, so that I might be willing to force a truncation in an Edit region, if there were benefits. Is there a (performance or feature-based) reason to avoid Text? Given my VFP heritage, my inclination is to think of Text as like Memo, and use it for anything long.
>>
>>TIA,
>>
>>-- Randy
>
>Varchar holds only up to 255 chars. If you need more than that you should use text. Text fields are not nearly as easy to use within Transact-SQL as memo fields, but they look just like regular memo fields in VFP. There can be problems with updating text fields when the VFP remote view is based on a SQL Server view. Remote views based on tables work fine.
>
>Text fields are slower in SQL that varchars, but that is to be expected. Like memo fields, you can't do LIKE operations.

Bob,

Thanks much. That all makes plenty of sense. FYI, I just installed 7.0 and it looks like VarChar limit is now a whopping 8000 characters! This would make VarChar look pretty attractive for alot of cases where you probably had no choice before. [I'm guessing that VFP will convert a VarChar greater than 255 to a memo.]

-- Randy