Home/ Questions/Q 948905
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-15T23:19:10+00:00

I’m making a new web app using Rails, and was wondering, what’s the difference

  • 0

I’m making a new web app using Rails, and was wondering, what’s the difference between string and text? And when should each be used?

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The difference relies in how the symbol is converted into its respective column type in query language.

    with MySQL :string is mapped to VARCHAR(255)

    :string |                   VARCHAR                | :limit => 1 to 255 (default = 255)  
:text   | TINYTEXT, TEXT, MEDIUMTEXT, or LONGTEXT2 | :limit => 1 to 4294967296 (default = 65536)

    Reference:

    https://hub.packtpub.com/working-rails-activerecord-migrations-models-scaffolding-and-database-completion/

    When should each be used?

    As a general rule of thumb, use :string for short text input (username, email, password, titles, etc.) and use :text for longer expected input such as descriptions, comment content, etc.

    • 0