I have a Postgres schema which looks like:
The problem is that whenever I save text longer than 500 characters in the description column I get the error:
value too long for type character varying(500)
In the documentation for Postgres it says type text can have unlimited characters.
I'm using postgresql-9.1.
This table has been generated using Django 1.4 and the field type in the model is TextField, if that helps explain the problem further.
Any ideas as why this is happening and what I can do to fix it?
The maximum limit of size character using character varying data type in PostgreSQL is 10485760. The below example shows that the size of the character using character varying data type in PostgreSQL is 10485760.
The notations varchar( n ) and char( n ) are aliases for character varying( n ) and character( n ) , respectively. character without length specifier is equivalent to character(1) . If character varying is used without length specifier, the type accepts strings of any size. The latter is a PostgreSQL extension.
PostgreSQL provides two distinct ways to store binary data. Binary data can be stored in a table using the data type BYTEA or by using the Large Object feature, which stores the binary data in a separate table in a special format and refers to that table by storing a value of type OID in your table.
How to increase the length of a character varying datatype in Postgres without data loss. Run the following command: alter table TABLE_NAME alter column COLUMN_NAME type character varying(120); This will extend the character varying column field size to 120.
By specifying the column as VARCHAR(500)
you've set an explicit 500 character limit. You might not have done this yourself explicitly, but Django has done it for you somewhere. Telling you where is hard when you haven't shown your model, the full error text, or the query that produced the error.
If you don't want one, use an unqualified VARCHAR
, or use the TEXT
type.
varchar
and text
are limited in length only by the system limits on column size - about 1GB - and by your memory. However, adding a length-qualifier to varchar
sets a smaller limit manually. All of the following are largely equivalent:
column_name VARCHAR(500) column_name VARCHAR CHECK (length(column_name) <= 500) column_name TEXT CHECK (length(column_name) <= 500)
The only differences are in how database metadata is reported and which SQLSTATE is raised when the constraint is violated.
The length constraint is not generally obeyed in prepared statement parameters, function calls, etc, as shown:
regress=> \x Expanded display is on. regress=> PREPARE t2(varchar(500)) AS SELECT $1; PREPARE regress=> EXECUTE t2( repeat('x',601) ); -[ RECORD 1 ]----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ?column? | xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
and in explicit casts it result in truncation:
regress=> SELECT repeat('x',501)::varchar(1); -[ RECORD 1 ] repeat | x
so I think you are using a VARCHAR(500)
column, and you're looking at the wrong table or wrong instance of the database.
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