Posted: Thu Mar 01, 2007 3:19 pm
When a VarChar is stored within osh it carries its length as a prefixed binary number, the size of which is specified by "prefix". A two-byte unsigned integer (uint16 or unsigned SmallInt) can address a string whose length is up to 2^16 characters. Longer strings require larger prefixes. {prefix=4} handles string lengths up to 2^32 characters (4GB if single-byte character set).