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Character Data Type
Character strings are fixed‑length strings that can contain any printing or non‑printing character, and the null character ('\0'). For example, if you enter ABC into a character(5) column, five bytes will be stored, as follows:
'ABC  '
Leading and embedded blanks are significant when comparing character strings. For example, OpenSQL considers the following character strings to be different:
'A B C'
'ABC'
When selecting character strings using the underscore ( _ ) wildcard character of the like predicate, any trailing blanks you want to match must be included. For example, to select the following character string:
'ABC '
the wildcard specification must also contain trailing blanks:
'___  '
Length is not significant when comparing character strings. The shorter string is (logically) padded to the length of the longer. For example, OpenSQL considers the following character strings equal:
'ABC'
'ABC '
Char is a synonym for character.
Last modified date: 01/30/2023