Thread

Re: Need some help: attlen is pg_attributes gives a negative value.. .

Roland Roberts <roberts@panix.com> — 2000-05-04T03:26:56Z

>>>>> "Tom" == Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> writes:

    Tom> "Klein, Robert" <rvklein@ober.com> writes:
    >> [ attlen for a char(n) field is -1 ]

    >> I know in previous versions the length as defined in the create
    >> table statement was given.  Any ideas?

    Tom> Must have been quite a few versions back; attlen has been -1
    Tom> for variable-length datatypes for as long as I've been paying
    Tom> attention. (Of course char(n) isn't *really* variable length,
    Tom> but it's treated that way so that the representation is the
    Tom> same as for varchar(n) and text.)

When did this change?  I haven't looked 6.5, but I thought 6.3 still
has bpchar as fixed length and char(n) was blank padded whereas
varchar was not.

roland
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