varchar & text in MySQL

[Orjan]

Hello

I'd wonder how big varchars you need to start consider text fields instead?

at the moment, I have a 500 limit on my varchars, but I feel that I would need to increase it, so when should text be a reasonable field type. I know that text is treated differently. Although, there will be no full text search in this field.

[WingedPanther]

It depends a lot on the context, but I generally view it as a question of whether there is a reasonable limit on the amount of text a user might want to enter. Anything that's for storing "notes" type information I would make text, just because that can get quite long over time. I'd say anything over 100 chars is becoming a candidate for text, but if searching on it is important, I might hold off.

[Orjan]

At this specific context, most values will be up to 20 characters, but at times, some longer will be needed to be stored, maybe up to 1000 characters, it's gonna be admin editable, but not user editable...