LONG VARCHAR and LONG VARBINARY

Use VARCHAR() and VARBINARY() to increase column storage without using large object storage mechanisms.

Typically, developers and DBAs think of VARBINARY() and VARCHAR() data as being limited to 255 bytes.SAP Sybase IQsupports VARCHAR() and VARBINARY() widths of up to 32K (also known as LONG VARCHAR or LONG VARBINARY). This allows for much larger storage of text or binary data without needing to move into the highly specialized large objects storage mechanism of BLOB/CLOB or IMAGE/TEXT data types.

• Can be used to store moderate amounts of text or binary data
• Maximum width is 32K (64K ASCII hex for VARBINARY())
• The WORD and TEXT index is the only index allowed on VARCHAR() data wider than 255 bytes
• Storage will be allocated in 256 byte chunks
• A 257 byte string will require 512 bytes of storage
• A 511 byte string will also require 512 bytes of storage