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Status Not under consideration
Workspace IBM i
Categories Db2 for i
Created by Guest
Created on Aug 4, 2018

RELATED IDEAS

Increase VARCHAR() Scaler to 65KB, 16MB or 2GB

See this idea on ideas.ibm.com

Currently SQL VARCHAR() scalar function under DB2 for i supports lengths of up to 32k or 32k-1 w/Nullable values. HLL on IBM i support 64k Varchar column/fields as well as 16MB Varchar lengths. Other Platforms (Microsoft) also support much longer lengths (2Gb).


Use Case:

Using a high-level Language such as RPG IV, developers have the ability to retrieve data from Web sources, such as Watson/IBM Cloud and store that information. While fixed-length fields support very long data results, the SQL VARCHAR function and column attribute supports only 32k. This length is "old" and should be increased to at least 64k but I would prefer 16MB or even 2GB to be compatible with other platforms.


Idea priority Medium
  • Guest
    Reply
    |     Jun 28, 2020

    BM does not intend to provide a solution to this request at this time, so it is being closed.

    As mentioned in prior updates, the structure of a VARCHAR data type in host languages and internally is a 2-byte binary length followed by the data. The VARCHAR scalar function has the same length limitation since the result data type is VARCHAR. To work with longer character data, the CLOB function resulting in a CLOB data type must be used. A CLOB can handle all the lengths supported by VARCHAR, so it is the preferred data type for any situation where more than 32K might be needed.

  • Guest
    Reply
    |     May 9, 2019

    If you want to go beyond approximately 32K, you must use the CLOB scalar function because the result is a CLOB not a VARCHAR.
    You can use the CLOB function for must smaller values as well.

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