From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: "David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>
cc: Muhammad Ikram <mmikram@gmail.com>,
        "pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" <pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Column data type in doc example may be changed to VARCHAR from
 TEXT
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Comments: In-reply-to "David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>
	message dated "Wed, 17 Jul 2024 22:17:56 -0700"
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Date: Thu, 18 Jul 2024 01:28:02 -0400
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"David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com> writes:
> On Wednesday, July 17, 2024, Muhammad Ikram <mmikram@gmail.com> wrote:
>> IMHO, a minor issue in the doc. As a good practice we use TEXT data typ=
e
>> when we expect longer text e.g. comments, doc kind of columns.

> Who is we in this conversation?  If it=E2=80=99s the documentation pleas=
e reference
> existing work.  Text is our preferred type and we are fairly consistent =
in
> using it to my knowledge.

Even granting the premise, who's to say what an appropriate maximum
length for "products.name" would be?

IMNSHO, both char(N) and varchar(N) are hangovers from punched-card
days.  The number of cases where you can actually specify a limit
that wasn't pulled out of the air can be counted without running out
of fingers.  Moreover, most of those cases can be traced to standards
that were written when punched cards were au courant (postal codes for
example) and hence thought that an arbitrary limit was a good thing.
Time to move on.

			regards, tom lane