
We have a table called users that stores user information: The || operator takes two or more arguments and returns a single concatenated string. Most SQL databases, with the notable exception of SQL Server, support this operator. Standard SQL uses the || operator (as well as a few other options). Here are a few examples of the most well-known techniques for SQL concatenation. The syntax for SQL concatenation can vary depending on the specific SQL dialect being used. This article discusses a very effective method of storing large amounts of data in MySql efficiently.These are just a few examples, but SQL concatenation can be used in many other situations where combining multiple strings is necessary. In order to get the same amount of storage as a varchar(max) in MySql you would still need to resort to a BLOB column type. So varchar(MAX) really means varchar(AS_MUCH_AS_I_WANT_TO_STUFF_IN_HERE_JUST_KEEP_GROWING) and not varchar(MAX_SIZE_OF_A_COLUMN). Unlike TEXT, NTEXT, and BLOB the varchar(max) column type supports all the same query semantics as other column types. The data for varchar(max) columns is stored inline with the table data pages.Īs the data in the MAX column fills an 8KB data page an overflow page is allocated and the previous page points to it forming a linked list. In SQL Server 2005, varchar(max) was introduced to unify the data and queries used to retrieve and modify data in large columns. The big caveat to these column types was that they usually required special functions and statements to access and modify the data (e.g. In order to store more than 8KB you would have to use TEXT, NTEXT, or BLOB columns types, these column types stored their data as a collection of 8K pages separate from the table data pages they supported storing up to 2GB per row.

The amount of data that a column could store in Microsoft SQL server versions prior to version 2005 was limited to 8KB. Varchar(max) is a feature of Microsoft SQL Server. TLDR MySql does not have an equivalent concept of varchar(max), this is a MS SQL Server feature. mysql> CREATE TABLE foo ( v VARCHAR(21844) ) CHARSET=utf8

This makes perfect sense, if you calculate that 21845*3 = 65535, which wouldn't have worked anyway. mysql> CREATE TABLE foo ( v VARCHAR(21845) ) CHARSET=utf8 In spite of what the last error told us, InnoDB still doesn't like a length of 21845. mysql> CREATE TABLE foo ( v VARCHAR(65532) ) CHARSET=utf8 ĮRROR 1074 (42000): Column length too big for column 'v' (max = 21845) use BLOB or TEXT instead UTF8 strings don't necessarily use multiple bytes per string, but MySQL can't assume you'll restrict all your future inserts to single-byte characters. Now if we try to use a multibyte charset at the table level, we find that it counts each character as multiple bytes. You have to change some columns to TEXT or BLOBsīut if we try decreasing lengths, we find the greatest length that works: mysql> CREATE TABLE foo ( v VARCHAR(65532) ) This includes storage overhead, check the manual. The maximum row size for the used table type, not counting BLOBs, is 65535.

mysql> CREATE TABLE foo ( v VARCHAR(65534) ) ĮRROR 1118 (42000): Row size too large.

So you actually can't declare a varchar of the maximum row size, even if it's the only column in the table. The maximum row size is 65535, but a varchar also includes a byte or two to encode the length of a given string. However, note that the limit is lower if you use a multi-byte character set: VARCHAR(21844) CHARACTER SET utf8 The max length of a varchar is subject to the max row size in MySQL, which is 64KB (not counting BLOBs): VARCHAR(65535)
