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Possible Duplicate:
What's the difference between VARCHAR and CHAR?

what is the difference between CHAR and VARCHAR.

A: 

VARCHAR stores a variable number of bytes for only the space required by the content.

CHAR stores a fixed size of however many bytes you specify for your table, no matter how many characters occupy a field of this type per row.

BoltClock
A: 

A CHAR field is a fixed length, and VARCHAR is a variable length field.

This means that the storage requirements are different - a CHAR always takes the same amount of space regardless of what you store, whereas the storage requirements for a VARCHAR vary depending on the specific string stored.

Mark Byers