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I got a multi-use SQL table in my SQL Server 2008 database. It can store only 100 characters as value.
Now I want to store a value in it that has more than 100 characters. Is it possible to zip or compress a text with SQL Server functionality?
If your column is defined as
VARCHAR(100), it can hold a maximum of 100 characters. There’s no “magic” or “compression” that makes this go away.Yes, SQL Server has text compression – to reduce the disk space used. But if the column is limited to 100 characters, it can store no more than 100 characters.
If you need more – you need to define a column with a larger capacity. There’s no other solution.
It’s very easy to change a column’s datatype, too – so if you need to, you should be able to just issue a SQL statement like:
and now your column can store up to 150 characters. This is a non-destructive change, e.g. existing data will not be affected (not wiped out or deleted).