Lee McFadden wrote: > On 08/11/05, Ian Bicking <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > >>One data design note -- I don't think you should normally give length to >>StringCol (i.e., you should use TEXT). Fixed-length fields are a relic >>of the 80's; modern databases can and do deal pretty well with arbitrary >>length text fields. Except MySQL doesn't allow indexes on them. Dumb >>MySQL. In fact, if I remember correctly (and I may not), many databases >>will be more space-efficient with arbitrary length fields, because they >>don't preallocate the full length, but they frequently do for fixed >>length fields. > > > As you say, MySQL is the killer there. If the length column isn't in > it complains to high heaven. Although, doesn'y MySQL have a TEXT > column type? I wonder if it would be possible to have SQLObject > automatically create a TEXT column if you don't specify a length in a > StringCol?
It does. The only issue I know of is that you can't put an index on such a column. Silly, really, as it would be perfectly fine to only index the first 255 characters and ignore the rest. But oh well. Or maybe you just couldn't put an index on BLOB columns? Now I can't remember; it came up in the SQLObject bug tracker recently, mostly because MySQL gives a weird and confusing error message when it happens. -- Ian Bicking | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | http://blog.ianbicking.org
