At 08:51 31/08/2008, you wrote:

>just a question,
>why firebird team decided to don't implement such feature?

Because it goes contrary to the rules of data consistency. Reducing the size of a character field (or altering any data type that potentially results in loss of data) is forbidden under those rules.

>may be usefull.

In databases, if there is a race between consistency and usefulness, consistency always wins.

./heLen