The maximum size for expressions, variables, and arguments passed to stored procedures is 16384 bytes (16K), for any page size. This can be either character or binary data. You can insert variables and literals up to this maximum size into text columns without using the writetext command.
Some early versions of SAP ASE had a maximum size of 255 bytes for expressions, variables, and arguments for stored procedures.
Any scripts or stored procedures that you wrote for earlier versions of SAP ASE, restricted by the lower maximum, may now return larger string values because of the larger maximum page sizes.
Because of the larger value, SAP ASE may truncate the string, or the string may cause overflow if it was stored in another variable or inserted into a column or string.
If columns of existing tables are modified to increase the length of character columns, you must change any stored procedures that operate data on these columns to reflect the new length.
select datalength(replicate("x", 500)),
datalength("abcdefgh....255 byte long string.." +
"xxyyzz ... another 255 byte long string")
----------- ----------- 255 255