<< The size of VARCHAR is ‘unlimited’, that’s why XML data is exported as CDATA, which is allowed in XML. If you import this kind of data it should work correctly, but in that case you are dependent of the receiving software. If you like to avoid this situation you better make use of a TEXT column. The limit in that case is 1500 characters. In this situation the text field is exported in a normal (readable) way >>
CDATA is not related to the length of the enclosed text, but rather the contents. CDATA can contain characters that structure XML and that cannot, normally, be included in an XML file with special encoding (for instance, it's the only way to embed a piece of non-encoded HTML into an XML document). I'm not sure why the CDATA section in this case is Base64 encoded since that would seem to be necessary only for a standard XML element (where the Base64 encoding would eliminate not only any non-ASCII characters but also the problematic symbols <, >, and &. -- Larry
