Hibernate version:
2.1
Mapping documents:
<property name="abbreviation" type="string">
<meta attribute="field-description">
A 2 digit abbreviation of the state or province's name.
</meta>
<meta attribute="scope-get">public</meta>
<meta attribute="scope-set">protected</meta>
<column
length="2"
name="abbreviation"
not-null="true"
sql-type="char"
/>
</property>
Name and version of the database you are using:
PostgreSQL 7.4.2
The generated SQL (show_sql=true):
abbreviation char not null,

The SchemaExport utility seems to ignore the length attribute of the column element if the sql-type attribute is "char".

The char type (to me) implies one character so it appears reasonable to me. Change the type to varchar which is more appropriate.

Historically, I've always used char(len) rather than varchar(len) in cases where I *know* the values will be a certain length exactly, such as SHA-1 hashed passwords. To me it makes sense. My argument is not strengthened by the SQL standard, since it will happily take a character field shorter than 32 characters and store it in a char(32) field after padding it.

According to the docs on postgresql, there is no speed difference between char(len) and varchar(len). I dunno if this is true for all db platforms and it may give me trouble with index speeds if not. I plan on making this application run on many db platforms, and liked hibernate because it can help me in that endever.

I guess I will switch to using varchar(len) and tweaking the exported SQL by hand where necessary.

Thank your for your consideration.

sql-type="char(xx)" should do what you want. (if i remember correctly)

If a platform accepts both char(x) and varchar(x) they will be the same fixed length field implementation below the covers. Either is fine (and yes sql-type="char(x)" [where x is a length int]) will work) but there is the sematics that bother me just a little.