Jeff Moden (2/2/2009)

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charlesz (2/2/2009)

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Second, NVarchar(MAX) and Varchar(MAX) can only hold up to 65535 bytes ( The number posted by Gail Shaw was wrong).

Any bets on that?

DECLARE @test-2 VARCHAR(MAX),

@String VARCHAR(MAX)

SELECT @test-2 = '',

@String = '1234567890'

;WITH

cteTally AS

(--==== Create a Tally CTE from 1 to 10,000

SELECT TOP (10000)

ROW_NUMBER() OVER (ORDER BY t1.ID) AS N

FROM Master.sys.SysColumns t1

CROSS JOIN Master.sys.SysColumns t2

)

SELECT @test-2 = @test-2 + '1234567890'

FROM cteTally

SELECT LEN(@Test)

I have to ask... where did you get such an idea? I'd like to know so I can go straighten them out. 😉

varchar [ ( n | max ) ]

Variable-length, non-Unicode character data. n can be a value from 1 through 8,000. max indicates that the maximum storage size is 2^31-1 bytes. The storage size is the actual length of data entered + 2 bytes. The data entered can be 0 characters in length. The SQL-2003 synonyms for varchar are char varying or character varying.

nvarchar [ ( n | max ) ]

Variable-length Unicode character data. n can be a value from 1 through 4,000. max indicates that the maximum storage size is 2^31-1 bytes. The storage size, in bytes, is two times the number of characters entered + 2 bytes. The data entered can be 0 characters in length. The SQL-2003 synonyms for nvarchar are national char varying and national character varying.