varchar(n) size?

Question

When I use varchar(5) in a INSERT query it means that the attribute in the table will take exactly 5 bytes in memory? (Given that one printable character takes one byte)?

Answer 1

It's not that simple.

The n in varchar(n) is just the upper limit of allowed characters (not bytes!). Only the actual string is stored, not padded to the maximum allowed size. That's opposed to the largely outdated, blank-padded data type char(n), which always stores the maximum length.

Each character can occupy one or more bytes, depending on the character and the encoding. In common UTF-8 encoding it's 1-4 bytes, and only basic ASCII characters occupy a single byte. You speak of "printable characters", but that's insignificant. Printable characters can still occupy 1-4 bytes.

a_horse's quote from the manual refers to storage of varlena types (including varchar) "on disk" (Hardly any disks in use any more. And the same applies to temporary tables in RAM. So "in tabular storage", really.). For up to 126 bytes (not characters!), the overhead is reduced to a single byte. The source code speaks of "packed" format. And there is no additional alignment padding in this format: nominal "int" alignment for varlena types is violated.

But you speak of "in memory". In RAM, once the value has been extracted from the stored row, the overhead is always 4 bytes - no "packed" format. And all varlena types require "int" alignment, which may add 1 to 3 bytes of padding.

And NULL storage has its own rules. See:

• How do completely empty columns in a large table affect performance?

So, the basic storage requirement for these strings in varchar(5) is:

"on disk"

NULL ... 1 bit (typically)
'' ... 1 byte
'foo' ... 4 bytes
'Motor' ... 6 bytes
'Motör' ... 7 bytes
'Motörhead' ... still 7 bytes, as an explicit cast to varchar(5) truncates to 'Motör'

"in memory"

NULL ... ?
'' ... 4 bytes
'foo' ... 7 bytes
'Motor' ... 9 bytes
'Motör' ... 10 bytes
'Motörhead' ... still 10 bytes, as an explicit cast to varchar(5) truncates to 'Motör'

Plus, possibly, alignment padding.

See:

• Calculating and saving space in PostgreSQL
• What is the overhead for varchar(n)?
• What determines if a bytea has 1 or 4 extra bytes?

Answer 2

Quote from the manual

If the string to be stored is shorter than the declared length [...] values of type character varying will simply store the shorter string.
...
The storage requirement for a short string (up to 126 bytes) is 1 byte plus the actual string

(character varying is the same as varchar)

So, it will take as much space as needed.