May 16, 2007
We had a support case that came in this week asking if there were issues with expanding a varchar(255) field to a larger value, such as varchar(500). Specifically, this customer was asking about expanding the internal notes field on the notes_log table (table_notes_log.internal). This customer is on an older version of Clarify (version 8 or version 9, IIRC), but they're using a more current version of Microsoft SQL Server (either 2000 or 2005, I forget exactly which one). These versions of MSSQL can handle much larger varchar lengths. I believe MSSQL 2000 can handle up to varchar(8000). I think the 255 limit is left over from the Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 days. It should work, I thought. One way to find out: let's try it. My environment for this test is Clarify 9 with MSSQL 2000. Clarify Data…
Expanding your varchar columns beyond 255 in Clarify is easy with the right tools
May 16, 2007
We had a support case that came in this week asking if there were issues with expanding a varchar(255) field to a larger value, such as varchar(500). Specifically, this customer was asking about expanding the internal notes field on the notes_log table (table_notes_log.internal). This customer is on an older version of Clarify (version 8 or version 9, IIRC), but they're using a more current version of Microsoft SQL Server (either 2000 or 2005, I forget exactly which one). These versions of MSSQL can handle much larger varchar lengths. I believe MSSQL 2000 can handle up to varchar(8000). I think the 255 limit is left over from the Sybase and Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 days. It should work, I thought. One way to find out: let's try it. My environment for this test is Clarify 9 with MSSQL 2000. Clarify Data…