"Dann Corbit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > I'm sure that this is an idiotic thing to say, but why not just make it > varchar?
The main reason NAME is a fixed-length datatype is that we'd have to rewrite (and make slower) a lot of catalog-accessing code that expects to be able to access other fields in catalog tuples at fixed offsets. I do not think it's worth it. Also, the existing performance bottlenecks look to me to be associated with assumptions that NAME is fixed-length. To convert to varlena NAME, we'd still have to fix all that code. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 3: if posting/reading through Usenet, please send an appropriate subscribe-nomail command to [EMAIL PROTECTED] so that your message can get through to the mailing list cleanly