Difference between VARCHAR2(10 CHAR) and NVARCHAR2(10)
I've installed Oracle Database 10g Express Edition (Universal) with the default settings: SELECT * FROM NLS_DATABASE_PARAMETERS; NLS_CHARACTERSET AL32UTF8 NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET AL16UTF16 Given that both CHAR and NCHAR data types seem to accept multi-byte strings, what is the exact difference between these two column definitions? VARCHAR2(10 CHAR) NVARCHAR2(10) Vincent Malgrat The NVARCHAR2 datatype was introduced by Oracle for databases that want to use Unicode for some columns while keeping another character set for the rest of the database (which uses VARCHAR2). The NVARCHAR2 is a Unicode