RE: CHAR vs VARCHAR

[Christopher Thompson]

> >> The big difference is speed.  CHARs are hella faster than
> VARCHARS.  By a
> >> lot.  CHARs take up a bit more disk space.  It's disk space
> vs. speed.  We
> >> choose speed for our applications.
> >
> > Am I incorrect in assuming that CHARs are faster only if there are no
> > VARCHARs in the record?  In fact, isn't that one of the silent
> type changes?
>
> Yes, I am sorry.  Its an all or nothing type thing.  If you have any
> VARCHARS the whole table will slow down... and it is a sizable amount
> according to my experiments.
>

Given this, what is the reason to use VARCHARs instead of CHARs?

Given that the trailing spaces are removed when the value is retreived, I
can only see the case where you want to store strings with trailing spaces
as an instance where you would want to use VARCHAR.