What is a VARCHAR?
Here is a short description of VARCHARs: VARCHAR2 A kind of column in the database that contains variable-length character data. This is what Oracle calls an “internal datatype”, because it is a possible column type. VARCHAR An Oracle “external datatype” (datatype code 9). You use this only if you are doing dynamic SQL Method 4, or datatype equivalencing. VARCHAR[n] varchar[n] This is a Pro*C/C++ “pseudotype” that you can declare as a host variable in your Pro*C/C++ program. It is actually generated by Pro*C/C++ as a struct, with a 2-byte length element, and a [n]-byte character array.