FreeTDS Development Group

[Stefan Bodewig <bodewig AT bost.de>]

Nil Alexandrov <nil AT internet2.ru> wrote:

> Hello !
> 
> I think that varchar/char data types in TDS 4.2 cannot be longer
> than 255 characters, because in TDS 4.2 level length field is 1
> byte.  What about TDS 7.0 ?

varchar/char are limited to 8000 bytes, nvarchar/nchar are limited to
4000 characters in SQL Server 7, don't know about SQL Server
2000. Technically the protocol (TDS 7.0) would allow longer columns.

> What is it 'nvarchar' data type and what is different in MSSQL
> 'varchar/nvarchar' and in TDS level ?

char is a character in a given server dependent character set, nchar
is a unicode character. If you want to support multiple
languages/character sets, nchar/nvarchar is the way to go.

Stefan