varchar50

VARCHAR50 is a shorthand reference to a varchar data type constrained to 50 characters. In SQL, this is typically expressed as VARCHAR(50) and used for string data that does not have a fixed length.

The character varying type stores data in variable length, allocating storage only for the actual number of characters present plus a small length indicator. A VARCHAR(50) column can hold any string up to 50 characters long. In environments that use multibyte encodings, the number of bytes used may exceed 50, even though the number of characters is limited to 50.

Compared with CHAR(50), which reserves exactly 50 characters for every entry, VARCHAR saves space for shorter strings but introduces a small overhead to track length. CHAR can be slightly faster for fixed-width data and may be preferable when all values are the same length, whereas VARCHAR is more flexible for varying lengths.

Storage and performance considerations can vary by database management system. Some systems count length in characters, others in bytes; there is usually a maximum row size that can influence how much can be stored in multiple VARCHAR columns. Indexing a VARCHAR(50) column is common and generally efficient, though index length limits and collation can affect performance.

Use VARCHAR(50) for identifiers, codes, names, or other short to moderate-length strings where the maximum length is known to be 50 characters. For longer data, consider larger VARCHAR values or other types such as TEXT.

Example: CREATE TABLE customers (id INT PRIMARY KEY, customer_code VARCHAR(50) NOT NULL);