is trimming field size where suitable good practice?

[tenchy]

If I have a DB with several tables containing thousands of records, and most of those records only ever need say 8 characters, does anyone know if changing the field size from default 255 chars to 8 chars will actually benefits the the DB?

Potential benefits I'm thinking may occur are reduced filesize and maybe some speed?

 

[boblarson]

Access doesn't "pad" the fields like SQL Server, so it really isn't going to matter as long as it's in Access.

 

[tenchy]

thanks Bob

 

[The_Doc_Man]

The only time this MIGHT repeat MIGHT make a difference is if you export the data to another database format that DOES pad text fields.

Case in point: Export to ORACLE and forget that TEXT exports as CHAR - when you really wanted VARCHAR.

Otherwise, Bob's spot-on.