SQL SERVER VARCHAR

SQL Server VARCHAR Data Type is used to store non-unicode string data of variable length.

• VARCHAR data type is used to store non-Unicode string data of variable length.
• Stores data at 1 byte per character.
• Supports up to 8000 characters.

Syntax
varchar(n)
or
varchar(max)

n specify the string length that ranges from 1 to 8000. Default value for n is 1.

max specify the maximum storage size which is 2³¹-1 bytes (2 GB).

Data Storage Vs Length

In following T-SQL, declared a variable @str of datatype varchar of size 30.

As varchar takes1bytes per character to store the data, so it takes 9 bytes to store @str value ‘microsoft’ that is length of @strt* 1 bytes (9 *1) =9.

It is variable-length so, it takes actual length size of string that is 9 for  ‘microsoft’.

DECLARE @Str VARCHAR(30)

SET @Str = 'Microsoft'

SELECT @Str AS Strtext, DATALENGTH(@Str) AS StrText_OccupiedLength ,
LEN(@Str) AS StrText_length

Varchar can not store Unicode data

Varchar can not store Unicode data, Lets try to store Hindi language text to @str variable of type varchar.

DECLARE @Str VARCHAR(30)

SET @Str = N'माइक्रोसॉफ्ट'

SELECT @Str AS Strtext, DATALENGTH(@Str) AS StrText_OccupiedLength ,
LEN(@Str) AS StrText_length

As you can see, it does not support Unicode characters or multilingual data.

Also Read..

How to get the detailed information of all datatypes in SQL Server ?

SQL Server VARCHAR vs NVARCAR

SQL Server CHAR vs NCHAR