--- In ib-support@yahoogroups.com, Doug Chamberlin <yahoogroups@a...>
wrote:

> At 5/12/2003 08:57 PM (Monday), jbgilmartin wrote:
> >It is usual to have a set of rows/objects that are created and then
> >later another application acts on those objects generating variable
> >length log line entries (each entry could be from 25 to 150
> >characters in length) and varying between 10 and 30 lines long.
> >Instead of potentially wasting 125 bytes of space for each log line
> >entry if I stored each entry as a separate record in a log table
> >(plus 4 bytes of space for the key field for each line), I wanted

to

> >use a blob field to store these.
>
> I would consider using a VARCHAR field instead of a blob. Varchars

are

> variable length and compressed so you would not be incurring any

extra

> overhead (what you refer to as "wasted" space).
>
> Also, consider that this database is rather small so being

concerned about

> 800 objects of 1500 chars or so of log info each may not be worth

it.

It is not just 800 objects, but 300 to 1500 per day. With Access'
storage methodology, one day's worth of log processing makes the DB
grow by an order of magnitude.

From what I understood varchars are not compressed on the data page,
they are stored full length in the record plus a two byte length
indicator, thus there would be "empty" space at the each of each line
up to the size of the varchar field. Am I wrong?

Thanks for your help.

-- Jim